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SIR GIBBIE. 





SIR G I B B I E 


BY 

GEORGE MAC DONALD. LL.D. 

n 

AUTHOR OF 

ROBERT FALCONER,” ** DAVID ELGINBROD,” 
“ALEC FORBES OF HOWGLKN,” 

ETC.. ETC. 


3 


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PHILADELPHIA: 

DAVID McKAY, PUBLISHER, 

6io SOUTH WASHINGTON SQUARE. 







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SIR GiBBIE. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE EARRING. 

‘‘ Come oot o’ the gutter, ye nickum !” cried, in harsh, half- 
masculine voice, a woman standing on the curbstone of a 
short narrow, dirty lane, at right angles to an important thor- 
oughfare, itself none of the widest or cleanest. She was dress- 
ed in dark petticoat and print wrapper. One of her shoes 
was down at the heel, and discovered a great hole in her stock- 
ing. Had her black hair been brushed and displayed, it 
would have revealed a thready glitter of grey, but all that was 
now visible of it was only two or three untidy tresses that 
dropped from under a cap of black net and green ribbons, 
which looked as if she had slept in it. Her face must have 
been handsome when it was young and fresh ; but was now 
beginning to look tattooed, though whether the color was 
from without or from within, it would have been hard to de- 
termine. Her black eyes looked resolute, almost fierce, 
above her straight, well-formed nose. Yet evidently circum- 
stances clave fast to her. She had never risen above it, and 
was now plainly subjected to it. 

About thirty yards from her, on the farther side of the main 
street, and just opposite the mouth of the lane, a child, ap- 
parently about six, but in reality about eight, was down on 
his knees, raking with both hands in the grey dirt of the ken- 
nel. At the woman’s cry he lifted his head, ceased his 
search, raised himself, but without getting up, and looked at 
her. They were notable eyes out of which he looked — of 
such a deep blue were they, and having such long lashes ; but 
more notable far from their expression, the nature of which, 
although a certain witchery of confidence was at once discov- 
erable, was not to be determined without the help of the whole 
face, whose diffused meaning seemed in them to deepen al- 
most to speech. Whatever was at the heart of that expres- 


2 


SIR GIBBIE. 


sion, it was something that enticed question and might want 
investigation. The face as well as the eyes was lovely — not 
very clean, and not too regular for hope of a fine develop- 
ment, but chiefly remarkable from a general effect of some- 
thing I can only call luminosity. The hair, which stuck out 
from his head in every direction, like a round fur cap, would 
have been of the red-gold kind, had it not been sunburned 
into a sort of human hay. An odd creature altogether the 
child appeared, as shaking the gutter-drops from his little dirty 
hands, he gazed from his bare knees on the curbstone at the 
woman of rebuke. It was but for a moment. The next he 
was down raking in the gutter again. 

The woman looked angry, and took a step forward ; but 
the sound of a sharp imperative little bell behind her, made 
her turn at once and re-enter the shop from which she had 
just issued, following a man whose pushing the door wider 
had set the bell ringing. Above the door was a small board 
nearly square upon which was painted in lead-color on a 
black ground the words, ‘‘ Licensed to sell beer, spirits and 
tobacco to be drunk on the premises.” There was no other 
sign. “ Them 'at likes my whusky 'ill no aye be speerin’ my 
name,” said Mistress Croale. As the day went on she would 
have more customers, and in the evening on to midnight, her 
parlor would be well filled. Then she would be always at 
hand, and the spring of the bell would be turned aside from 
the impact of the opening door. Now the bell was needful 
to recall her from house affairs. 

“ The likin' at craturs his for clean dirt ! He’s been at it 
this hale half-hoor !” she murmured to herself as she poured 
from a black bottle into a pewter measure a gill of whisky for 
the pale-faced toper who stood on the other side of the coun- 
ter : far gone in consumption, he could not get through the 
forenoon without his ^morning.' “I wad like,” she went 
on, as she replaced the bottle without having spoken a word 
to her customer, whose departure was now announced with 
the same boisterous alacrity as his arrival by the shrill-toned 
bell — “ I wad like, for’s father's sake, honest man ! to thraw 
Gibbie’s lug. That likin’ for dirt I canna fathom nor bide.” 

Meantime the boy’s attention seemed entirely absorbed in 
the gutter. Whatever vehicle passed before him, whatever 
footsteps behind, he never lifted his head, but went creeping 
slowly on his knees along the curb still searching down the 
flow of the sluggish, nearly motionless current. 

It was a grey morning towards the close of autumn. The 
days began and ended with a fog, but often between, as gold- 


THE EARRING. 


3 


en a sunshine glorified the streets of the grey city as any that 
ripened purple grapes. To-day the mist had lasted longer 
than usual — had risen instead of dispersing ; but now it was 
thinning, and at length, like a slow blossoming of the sky- 
fiower, the sun came melting through the cloud. Between 
the gables of two houses, a ray fell upon the pavement and 
the gutter. It lay there a very type of purity, so pure that, rest 
where it might, it destroyed every shadow of defilement that 
sought to mingle with it. Suddenly the boy made a dart 
upon all fours, and pounced like a creature of prey upon 
something in the kennel. He had found w'hat he had been 
looking for so long. He sprang to his feet and bounded 
with it into the sun, rubbing it as he ran upon what he had 
for trousers, of which there w^as nothing below the knees but 
a few streamers, and nothing above the knees but the body of 
the garment, which had been — I will not say made for, but 
last worn by a boy three times his size. His feet, of course, 
were bare as well as his knees and legs. But though they 
were dirty, red, and rough, they were nicely shaped little legs, 
and the feet were dainty. 

The sunbeams he sought came dowm through the smoky air 
like a Jacob’s ladder, and he stood at the foot of it like a little 
prodigal angel that w'anted to go home again, but feared it w^as 
too much inclined for him to manage the ascent in the present 
condition of his wings. But all he did want w’as to see in the 
light of heaven what the gutter had yielded him. He held up 
his find in the radiance and regarded it admiringly. It was a 
little earring of amethyst-colored glass, and in the sun looked 
lovely. The boy w'as in an ecstacy over it. He rubbed it on 
his sleeve, sucked it to clear it from the last of the gutter, and 
held it up once more in the sun, where, for a few blissful mo- 
ments, he contemplated it speechless. He then caused it to 
disappear somewhere about his garments — I will not venture 
to say in a pocket — and ran off, his little bare feet sounding 
ihud, thud, thud on the pavement, and the collar of his 
jacket sticking half-way up the back of his head, and threaten- 
ing to rub it bare as he ran. Through street after street he 
sped — all built of granite, all wdth flagged footways, and all 
paved wdth granite blocks — a hard, severe city, not beautiful 
or stately with its thick, grey, sparkling walls, for the houses 
were not high, and the windows were small, yet in the better 
parts, nevertheless, handsome as well as massive and strong. 

To the boy the great city was but a house of many rooms, 
all for his use, his sport, his life. He did not know much of 
what lay within the houses ; but that only added the joy of 


4 


SIR GIBBIE. 


mystery to possession : they were jewel-closets, treasure-caves, 
indeed, with secret fountains of life ; and every street was a 
channel into which they overflowed. 

It was in one of quite a third-rate sort that the urchin at 
length ceased his trot, and drew up at the^ door of a baker’s 
shop — a divided door, opening in the middle by a latch of 
bright brass. But the child did not lift the latch — only raised 
himself on tiptoe by the help of its handle, to look through 
the upper half of the door, which was of glass, into the beau- 
tiful shop. The floor was of flags, fresh sanded ; the counter 
was of deal, scrubbed as white almost as flour ; on the shelves 
were heaped the loaves of the morning’s baking, along with 
a large store of scones and rolls and baps — the last, the best 
bread in the world — biscuits hard and soft, and those brown 
discs of delicate flaky pie-crust known as buns. And the 
smell that came through the very glass, it seemed to the child, 
was as that of the tree of life in the Paradise of which he had 
never heard. But most enticing of all to the eyes of the little 
wanderer of the street were the penny-loaves, hot smoking 
from the oven — which fact is our first window into the order- 
ed nature of the child. For the main point w'hich made them 
more attractive than all the rest to him was, that sometimes 
he did have a penny, and that a penny loaf was the largest 
thing that could be had for a penny in the shop. So that, 
lawless as he looked, the desires of the child were moderate, 
and his imagination wrought within the bounds of reason. 
But no one who has never been blessed with only a penny to 
spend and a mighty hunger behind it, can understand the in- 
terest with which he stood there and through the glass watch- 
ed the bread, having no penny and only the hunger. There 
is at least one powerful bond, though it may not always awake 
sympathy, between mudlark and monarch — that of hunger. 
No one has yet written the poetry of hunger — has built up in 
verse its stairs of grand ascent — from such hunger as Gibbie’s 
for a penny-loaf up — no, no, not to an alderman’s feast ; that 
is the way down the mouldy cellar-stair — but up the white 
marble scale to the hunger after righteousness whose very 
longings are bliss. 

Behind the counter sat the baker’s wife, a stout, fresh-color- 
ed woman, looking rather dull, but simple and honest. She 
was knitting, and if not dreaming, at least dozing over her 
work, for she never saw the forehead and eyes which, like a 
young ascending moon, gazed at her over the horizon of the 
opaque half of her door. There was no greed in those eyes 
'^iily much quiet interest. He did not want to get in ; had 


THE EARRING. 


5 


to wait, and while waiting beguiled the time by beholding. 
He knew that Mysie, the baker’s daughter, was at school, and 
that she would be home within half an hour. He had seen 
her with tear-filled eyes as she went, had learned from her the 
cause, and had in consequence unwittingly roused Mrs. 
Croale’s anger, and braved it when aroused. But though he 
was waiting for her, such was the absorbing power of the spec- 
tacle before him that he never heard her approaching foot- 
steps. 

“ Lat me in,” said Mysie, with conscious dignity and a 
touch of indignation at being impeded on the very threshold 
of her father’s shop. 

The boy started and turned, but instead of moving out of 
the way, began searching in some mysterious receptacle hid 
in the recesses of his rags. A look of anxiety once appeared, 
but the same moment it vanished, and he held out in his hand 
the little drop of amethystine splendor. Mysie’s face changed, 
and she clutched it eagerly. 

“ That’s rale guid o’ ye, wee Gibbie ! ” she cried. Whaur 
did ye get it ? ” 

He pointed to the kennel, and drew back from the door. 

‘ ‘ I thank ye, ” she said heartily, and pressing down the 
thumbstall of the latch, went in. 

‘ ‘ Wha’s that ye’re colloguin’ wi, ’ Mysie ? ” asked her 
mother, somewhat severely, but without lifting her eyes from 
her wires. “Ye mauna be speykin’ to loons i’ the street.” 

“ Its only wee Gibbie, mither,” answered the girl in a tone 
of confidence. 

“ Ou weel ! ” returned the mother, “ he’s no like the lave 
o’ loons.” 

“ But what had ye to say till him?” she resumed, as if 
afraid her leniency might be taken advantage of. “ He’s no 
fit company for the likes o’ you, ’at his a father an’ mither, 
an’ a chop {shop). Ye maun hae little to say to sic rintheroot 
laddies.” 

‘ ‘ Gibbie has a father, though they say he never hid nae 
mither,” said the child. 

“Troth, a fine father ! ” rejoined the mother, with a small 
scornful laugh. “ Na, but he’s something to mak mention 
o’ ! Sic a father, lassie, as it wad be tellin’ him he had nane I 
What said ye till ’im ? ” 

“I bit thankit ’im, ’cause I tint my drop as I gaed to the 
schuil i’ the mornin’, an’ he fan’t till me, an’ was at the chop- 
door waitin’ to gie me’t back. They say he’s aye fin’in’ 
things.” 


6 


SIR GIBBIE. 


“ He’s a guid-hertit cratur ! ” said the mother, for ane, 
that is, ’at’s been sae ill broucht up. ” 

She rose, took from the shelf a large piece of bread, com- 
posed of many adhering penny-loaves, detached one, and 
went to the door. 

“ Here, Gibbie ! ” she cried as she opened it ; here’s a 
fine piece to ye.” 

But no Gibbie was there. Up and down the street not a 
child was to be seen. A sandboy with a donkey cart was the 
sole human arrangement in it. The baker’s wife drew back, 
shut the door and resumed her knitting. 


CHAPTER H. 

SIR GEORGE. 

The sun was hot for an hour or two in the middle of the 
day, but even then in the shadow dwelt a cold breath — of the 
winter, or of death — of something that humanity felt un- 
friendly. To Gibbie, however, bare-legged, bare-footed, al- 
most bare-bodied as he was, sun or shadow made small dif- 
ference, except as one of the musical intervals of life that 
make the melody of existence. His bare feet knew the dif- 
ference on the flags, and his heart recognized unconsciously 
the secret as it were of a meaning and a symbol, in the change 
from the one to the other, but he was almost as happy in the 
dull as in the bright day. Hardy through hardship, he knew 
nothing better than a constant good-humored sparring with 
nature and circumstance for the privilege of being, enjoyed 
what came to him thoroughly, never mourned over what he 
had not, and, like the animals, was at peace. For the bliss 
of the animals lies in this, that, on their lower level, they 
shadow the bliss of those — few at any moment on the earth — 
who do not “look before and after, and pine for what is 
not,” but live in the holy carelessness of the eternal now. 
Gibbie by no means belonged to the higher order, was as yet, 
indeed, not much better than a very blessed little animal. 

To him the cry was all a show. He knew many of the 
people — some of them who thought no small things of them- 
selves — ^better than they would have chosen he or any one else 
should know them. He knew all the peripatetic vendors, 
most of the bakers, most of the small grocers and trades- 
people. Animal as he was, he was laying in a great stock for 


SIR GEORGE. 


7 


the time when he would be something more, for the time of 
reflection, whenever that might come. Chiefly, his experience 
was a wonderful provision for the future perception of charac- 
ter ; for now he knew to a nicety how any one of his large 
acquaintance would behave to him in circumstances within 
the scope of that experience. If any such little vagabond 
rises in the scale of creation, he carries with him from the 
street an amount of material serving to the knowledge of hu- 
man nature, human need, human aims, human relations in 
the business of life, such as hardly another can possess. Even 
the poet, greatly wise in virtue of his sympathy, will scarcely 
understand a given human condition so well as the man 
whose vital tentacles have been in contact with it for years. 

When Gibbie was not looking in at a shop-window, or 
turning on one heel to take in all at a sweep, he was oftenest 
(seen trotting. Seldom he walked. A gentle trot was one of 
his natural modes of being. And though this day he had 
been on the trot all the sunshine through, nevertheless, when 
the sun was going down there was wee Gibbie upon the trot 
in the chilling and darkening streets. He had not had much 
to eat. He had been very near having a penny loaf. Half a 
cookie which a stormy child had thrown away to ease his 
temper, had done further and perhaps better service in easing 
Gibbie’s hunger. The green-grocer woman at the entrance of 
the court where his father lived, a good way down the same 
street in which he had found the lost earring, had given him 
a small yellow turnip — to Gibbie nearly as welcome as an 
apple. A fishwife from Finstone with a creel on her back, 
had given him all his hands could hold of the sea-weed called 
dulse^ presumably not from its sweetness, although it is good 
eating. She had added to the gift a small crab, but that he 
: had carried to the seashore and set free, because it was alive. 
These, the half-cookie, the turnip, and the dulse, with the 
smell of the baker’s bread, was all he had had. It had been 
rather one of his meagre days. But it is wonderful upon how 
little those rare natures capable of making the most of things 
will live and thrive. There is a great deal more to be got out 
of things than is generally got out of them, whether the thing 
be a chapter of the Bible or a yellow turnip, and the marvel is 
that those who use the most material should so often be those 
that show the least result in strength of character. A super- 
stitious priest-ridden Catholic may, in the kingdom of heaven, 
be high beyond sight of one who counts himself the broadest 
of English churchmen. Truly Gibbie got no fat out of his 
food, but he got what was far better. What he carried — I can 


8 


SIR GIBBIE. 


hardly say under or in, but along with those rags of his, was 
all muscle — small, but hard, and healthy, and knotting up 
like whipcord. There are all degrees of health in poverty as 
well as in riches, and Gibbie’s health was splendid. His 
senses also were marvellously acute. I have already hinted 
at his gift for finding things. His eyes were sharp, quick, and 
roving, and then they went near the ground, he was such a 
little fellow. His success, however, not all these considera- 
tions could well account for, and he was regarded as born 
with a special luck in finding. I doubt if sufficient weight 
was given to the fact, that even when he was not so turning 
his mind it strayed in that direction, whence, if any object 
cast its reflected rays on his retina, those rays never failed to 
reach his mind also. On one occasion he picked up the 
pocket-book a gentleman had just dropped, and, in mingled 
fun and delight, was trying to put it in its owner’s pocket un- 
seen, when he collared him, and, had it not been for the tes- 
timony of a young woman who, coming behind, had seen the 
whole, would have handed him over to the police. After all, 
he remained in doubt, the thing seemed so incredible. He 
did give him a penny, however, which Gibbie at once spent 
upon a loaf. 

It was not from any notions of honesty — he knew nothing 
about it — that he always did what he could to restore the 
things he found ; the habit came from quite another cause. 
When he had no clue to the owner, he carried the thing found . 
to his father, who generally let it lie a while, and at length, if 
it was of nature convertible, turned it into drink. 

While Gibbie thus lived in the streets like a town sparrow 
— as like a human bird without storehouse or barn as boy 
could well be — the human father of him would all day be 
sitting in a certain dark court, as hard at work as an aching 
head and a bloodless system would afford. The said court 
was off the narrowest part of a long, poverty-stricken street, 
bearing a name of evil omen, for it was called the Widdiehill 
— the place of the gallows. It was entered by a low archway 
in the middle of an old house, around which yet clung a 
musty fame of departed grandeur and ancient note. In the 
court, against a wing of the same house, rose an outside stair, 
leading to the first floor ; under the stair was a rickety wooden 
shed ; and in the shed sat the father of Gibbie, and cobbled 
boots and shoes as long as, at this time of the year, the light 
lasted. Up that stair, and two more inside the house, he 
went to his lodging, for he slept in the garret. But when or 
bow he got to bed, George Galbraith never knew, for then, 


SIR GEORGE. 


9 


invariably, he was drunk.' In the morning, however, he al- 
ways found himself in it — generally with an aching head, and 
always with a mingled disgust at and desire for drink. Dur- 
ing the day, alas ! the disgust departed, while the desire re- 
mained, and strengthened with the approach of evening. All 
day he worked with might and main, such might and main as 
he had — worked as if for his life, and all to procure the means 
of death. No one ever sought to treat him, and from no one 
^would he accept drink. He was a man of such inborn hon- 
esty, that the usurping demon of a vile thirst had not even 
yet, at the age of forty, been able to cast it out. The last little 
glory-cloud of his origin was trailing behind him — but yet it 
trailed. Doubtless it needs but time to make of a drunkard 
a thief, but not yet, even when longing was at the highest, 
w^ould he have stolen a forgotten glass of whiskey ; and still, 
often in spite of sickness and aches innumerable, George la- 
bored that he might have wherewith to make himself drunk 
honestly. Strange honesty ! Wee Gibbie was his only child, 
but about him or his well-being he gave himself almost as 
little trouble as Gibbie caused him ! Not that he was hard- 
hearted ; if he had seen the child in want, he would, at the 
drunkest, have shared his whiskey with him ; if he had fancied 
him cold, he would have put his last garment upon him ; but 
to his whiskey-dimmed eyes the child scarcely seemed to want 
anything, and the thought never entered his mind that, while 
iGibbie always looked smiling and contented, his father did so 
little to make him so. He had at the same time a very low 
opinion of himself and his deservings, and justly, for his con- 
sciousness had dwindled into little more than a live thirst. 
He did not do well for himself, neither did men praise him ; 
and he shamefully neglected his child ; but in one respect, 
and that a most important one, he did well by his neighbors : 
he gave the best of work, and made the lowest of charges. 
In no other way w'as he for much good. And yet I would 
rather be that drunken cobbler than many a “fair professor," 
as Bunyan calls him. A grasping merchant ranks infinitely 
lower than such a drunken cobbler. Thank God, the Son of 
Man is the judge, and to him will we plead the cause of such 
— yea, and of worse than they — for He will do right. It may 
be well for drunkards that they are social outcasts, but is there 
no intercession to be made for them — no excuse to be plead- 
ed ? Alas ! the poor wretches would storm the kingdom of 
peace by the inspiration of the enemy. Let us try to under- 
stand George Galbraith. His very existence the sense of a 
sunless, dreary, cold-wiaded deseri, . he - was. evermore con- 


lO 


SIR GIBBIE. 


fronted, in all his resolves after betterment, by the knowledge 
that with the first eager mouthful of the strange element, a 
rosy dawn would begin to flush the sky, a mist of green to 
cover the arid waste, a wind of song to ripple the air, and at 
length the misery of the day w’ould vanish utterly, and the 
night throb with dreams. For George was by nature no com- 
mon man. At heart he was a poet — w’eak enough, but capa- 
ble of endless delight. The time had been when now and 
'then he read a good book, and dreamed noble dreams. Even 
yet the stuff of which such dreams are made, fluttered in parti- 
colored rags about his life ; and color is color even on a 
scarecrow. 

He had had a good mother, and his father was a man of 
some character, both intellectually and socially. Now and 
then, it is too true, he had terrible bouts of drinking ; but all 
the time between he was perfectly sober. • He had given his 
son more than a fair education ; and George, for his part, had 
trotted through the curriculum of Elphinstone College not al- 
together without distinction. But beyond this his father had 
entirely neglected his future, not even revealing to him the 
fact — of which, indeed, he was himself but dimly aware — that 
from wilful oversight on his part and design on that of 
others, his property had all but entirely slipped from his pos- 
session. 

While his father was yet alive, George married the daughter 
of a small laird in a neighboring county — a woman of some 
education and great natural refinement. He took her home 
to the ancient family house in the city — the same in which he 
now occupied a garret, and under whose outer stair he now 
cobbled shoes. There, during his father s life, they lived in 
peace and tolerable comfort, though in a poor enough way. 
It was all, even then, that the wife could do to make both 
ends meet; nor w^ould her relations, whom she had grievous- 
ly offended by her marriage, afford her the smallest assistance. 
Even then, too, her husband was on the slippery incline ; but 
as long as she lived she managed to keep him within the 
bounds of what is called respectability. She died, however, 
soon after Gibbie was born ; and then George began to lose 
himself altogether. The next year his father died, and credi- 
tors appeared who claimed everything. Mortgaged land and 
houses, with all upon and in them, were sold, and George 
left without a penny or any means of winning a livelihood, 
while already he had lost the reputation that might have in- 
troduced him to employment. For heavy work He was alto- 
gether unfit ; and had it .hot been for a bottle companion — a 


SIR GEORGE. 


II 


4n_erry, hard-drinking shoemaker — he would have died of 
starvation or sunk into beggary. 

This man taught him his trade, and George was glad 
enough to work at it, both to deaden the stings of conscience 
and memory, and to procure the means of deadening them 
still further. But even here was something in the way of im- 
provement, for hitherto he had applied himself to nothing, 
his being one of those dreamful natures capable of busy ex- 
ertion for a time, but ready to collapse into disgust with every 
kind of effort. 

How Gibbie had got thus far alive was a puzzle not a 
creature could have solved. It must have been by charity 
and ministration of more than one humble woman, but no 
one now claimed any particular interest in him — except Mrs. 
Croale, and hers was not very tender. It was a sad sight to 
some eyes to see him roving the streets, but an infinitely sad- 
der sight was his father, even when bent over his work, with 
his hands and arms and knees going as if for very salvation. 
What thoughts might then be visiting his poor worn-out brain 
I cannot tell ; but he looked the pale picture of misery. Doing 
his best to restore to service the nearly shapeless boots of car- 
ter or beggar, he was himself fast losing the very idea of 
his making, consumed heart and soul with a hellish thirst. 
For the thirst of the drunkard is even more of the soul than of 
the body. When the poor fellow sat with his drinking com- 
panions in Mistress Croale’s parlor, seldom a flash broke from 
the reverie in which he seemed sunk, to show in what region 
of fancy his spirit wandered, or to lighten the dulness that 
would not unfrequently invade that forecourt of hell. For 
even the damned must at times become aware of what 
they are, and then surely a terrible though momentary hush 
must fall upon the forsaken region. Yet those drinking com- 
panions would have missed George Galbraith, silent as he 
was, and but poorly responsive to the wit and humor of the 
rest ; for he was always courteous, always ready to share what 
he had, and never looking beyond the present tumbler — al- 
together a genial, kindly, honest nature. Sometimes, when 
two or three of them happened to meet elsewhere, they would 
fall to wondering why the silent man sought their company, 
seeing he both contributed so little to the hilarity of the even- 
ing, and seemed to derive so little enjoyment from it. But I 
believe their company was necessary as well as the drink to 
enable him to elude his conscience and feast with his imagi- 
nation. Was it that he knew they also fought misery by in- 
vestments in her bonds — that they also were of those who by 


12 


SIR CIBBIE. 


Beelzebub would cast out Beelzebub — therefore felt at home, 
and with his own ? 


CHAPTER III. 

MISTRESS CROALE. 

The house at which they met had yet not a little character 
remaining. Mistress Croale had come in for a derived worthi- 
ness, in the memory, yet lingering about the place, of a worthy 
aunt deceased, and always encouraged in herself a vague 
idea of obligation to live up to it. Hence she had made it a 
rule to supply drink only so long as her customers kept decent 
— that is, so long as they did not quarrel aloud, and put her 
in danger of a visit from the police; tell such tales as offended 
her modesty; utter oaths of any peculiarly atrocious quality; 
or defame the Sabbath Day, the Kirk, or the Bible. On these 
terms, and so long as they paid for what they had, they might 
get as drunk as they pleased, without the smallest offence to 
Mistress Croale. But if the least unquestionable infringement 
of her rules occurred, she would pounce upon the shameless 
one with sudden and sharp reproof. I doubt not that, so 
doing, she cherished a hope of recommending herself above, 
and making deposits in view of a coming balance-sheet. The 
result for this life so far was, that, by these claims to respect- 
ability, she had gathered a clientUe of douce, well-disposed 
drunkards, who rarely gave her any trouble so long as they 
were in the house, though sometimes she had reason to be 
anxious about the fate of individuals of them after they left it. 

Another peculiarity in her government was that she would 
/rarely give drink to a woman. “Na, na,'' she would say, 

,/ “what has a wuman to dee wi’ strong drink ! Lat the men 
dee as they like, we canna help them. ” She made exception 
in behalf of her personal friends ; and, for herself, was in the 
way of sipping — only sipping, privately, on account of her 
“trouble,’' she said — by which she meant some complaint, 
speaking of it as if it were generally known, although of the 
nature of it nobody had an idea. The truth was thu/t, like 
her customers, she also was going down the hill, justifying to 
herself every step of her descent. Until lately, she had been 
in the way of going regularly to church, and she did go oc- 
casionally yet, &d always took the yearly sacrament; but the 
only~fesult seemed to be that she abounded the more in find- 
ing justifications, or, where they were not to be had, excuses, 


MRS. CROALE. 1 3 

for all she did. Probably the stirring of her conscience made 
this the more necessary to her peace. 

If the Lord were to appear in person amongst us, how 
much would the sight of him do for the sinners of our day ? 
I am not sure that many like Mistress Croale would not go to 
him. She was not a bad woman, but slowly and surely 
growing worse. 

That morning, as soon as the customer whose entrance had 
withdrawn her from her descent on Gibbie, had gulped down 
(his dram, ! wiped his mouth with his blue cotton handkerchief, 
settled his face into the expression of a drink of water, gone 
demurely out, and crossed to the other side of the street, she 
M^ld have returned to the charge, but was prevented by the 
immediately following entrance of the Rev. Clement Sclater 
— the minister of her parish, recently appointed He was a 
man between yQ.ung and middle-aged, an honest fellow, zeal- 
ous to perform the duties of his office, but with notions of 
religion very beggarly. How could it be otherwise when he 
knew far more of what he called the Divine decrees than he 
did of his own heart, or the needs and miseries of human 
nature ? At the moment. Mistress Croale was standing with 
her back to the door, reaching up to replace the black bottle 
on its shelf, and did not see the man she heard enter. 

“ WhaPs yer wull she said indifferently. 

Mr. Sclater made no answer, waiting for her to turn and 
face him, which she did the sooner for his silence. Then she 
saw a man unknown to her, evidently, from his white neck- 
cloth and funereal garments, a minister, standing solemn, 
with wide-spread legs, and round eyes of displeasure, expect- 
ing her attention. 

“ What’s yer wull, sir ?” she repeated, with more respect, but 
less cordiality than at first. 

“If you ask my will,” he replied, with some pomposity, 
for who that has just gained an object of ambition can be 
humble ? — “ it is that you shut up this whisky shop, and be- 
take yourself to a more decent way of life in my parish.” 

‘ ‘ My certie ! but ye’re no blate {over-modest') to craw sae 
lood i’ viy hoose, an’ that’s a nearer fit nor a perris !” she 
cried, flaring up in wrath both at the nature and rudeness of 
the address. “ Alloo me to tell ye, sir, ye’re the first ’at ever 
daured threep my hoose was no a dacent ane.” 

“I said nothing about your house. It was your shop I 
spoke of,” said the minister, not guiltless of subterfuge. 

“An’ what’s my chop but my hoose? Haith ! my hoose 


14 


SIR GIBBIE. 


wad be o’ fell sma’ consideration wantin’ the chop. Tak ye 
heed o’ beirin’ fause witness, sir.” 

“I said nothing, and know nothing, against yours more 
than any other shop for the sale of drink in my parish. ” 

“The Lord’s my shepard ! Wad ye even {compare) my 
hoose to Jock Thamson’s or Jeemie Deuk’s, baith i’ this 
perris 

“My good woman, ” 

“ Naither better nor waur nor my neepers,” interrupted 
Mistress Croale, forgetting what she had just implied : “a 
body maun live.” 

“ There are limits even to that most generally accepted of 
all principles,” returned Mr. Sclater ; “and I give you fair 
warning that I mean to do what I can to shut up all such 
houses as yours in my parish. I tell you of it, not from the 
least hope that you will anticipate me by closing, but merely 
that no one may say I did anything in an underhand fashion.” 

The calmness with which he uttered the threat alarmed 
Mistress Croale. He might rouse unmerited suspicion, and 
cause her much trouble by vexatious complaint, even to the 
peril of her license. She must take heed, and not irritate her 
enemy. Instantly, therefore, she changed her tone to one of 
expostulation. 

“ It’s a sair peety, doobtless,” she said, “’at there sud be 
sae money drouthie thrapples i’ the kingdom, sir ; but 
drought maun drink, an’ ye ken, sir, gien it wad hauden frae 
them, they wad but see deils an’ cut their throts. ” 

‘ ‘ They’re like to see deils ony gait er’ lang, ” retorted the 
minister, relapsing into the vernacular for a moment. 

“Ow, deed maybe, sir ! but e’en the deils themsels war justi- 
feed i’ their objection to bein’ committed to their ain com- 
pany afore their time.” 

Mr. Sclater could not help smiling at the woman’s readi- 
ness, and that was a point gained by her. An acquaintance 
with Scripture goes far with a Scotch ecclesiastic. Besides, 
the man had a redeeming sense of humor, though he did not 
know how to prize it, not believing it a gift of God. 

“ It’s true, my woman,” he answered. “Ay ! it said some- 
thing for them deils ’at they war, ’at they preferred the swine. 
But even the swine cudna bide them !” 

Encouraged by the condescension of the remark, but disin- 
clined to follow the path of reflection it indicated. Mistress 
Croale ventured a little farther upon her own. 

“Ye see, sir,” she said, “as lang’s there’s whusky, it wull 
tak’ the throt-ro’d. It’s the naitral w’y o’ ’t, ye see, to rin 


MRS. CROALE. 


15 


doon, an’ it’s no mainner o’ use gangin’ again natur. Sae, 
allooin’ the thing maun be, ye’ll hae till aloo likewise, an’ it’s 
a trouth I’m tellin’ ye, sir, ’at it’s o’ nae sma’ consequence to 
the toon ’at the drucken craturs sud and fill themsels wi’ 
dacency — an’ that’s what I see till. Gang na to the magis> 
trate, sir : but as sune’s ye hae gotten testimony — guid testis 
mony though, sir — ’at there’s been disorder or immorawlity i’ 
my hoose, come ye to me, an’ I’ll gie ye my han’ to paper on’t 
this meenute, ’at I’ll gie up my chop, an’ lea’ yer perris — an’ 
may ye sune get a better i’ my place. Sir, I'm like a mither to 
the puir bodies ! An’ gin ye drive them to Jock Thamson’s, or 
Jeemie Deuk’s, it’ll be just like — savin the word, I dinna inten’ 
t ky sweirin’, guid kens ! — I say it’ll just be damnin’ them afore 
tneir time, like the puir deils. Hech ! but it’ll come sune 
eneuch, an’ they’re muckle to be peetied ! ” 

“And when those victims of your vile ministrations,” said 
the clergyman, again mounting his wooden horse, and setting 
it rocking, “find themselves where there will be no whisky to 
refresh them, where do you think you will be, Mistress 
Croale ?’ 

“Whaur the Lord wulls,” answered the woman. “Whaur 
that may be, I confess I’m whiles laith to think. Only gien 
I was you, Maister Sclater, I wad think twice afore I made 
ill waur.” 

“But hear me. Mistress Croale: it’s not your besotted cus- 
tomers only I have to care for. Your soul is as precious in 
my sight as any of wLich I shall have to render an account.” 

“As mistress Bonniman’s, for enstance?” suggested Mrs. 
Croale, interrogatively, and with just the least trace of pawki- 
ness in the tone. 

The city, large as it was, was yet not large enough to pre- 
vent a portion of the private affairs of individuals from com- 
ing to be treated as public property, and Mrs. Bonniman was 
a handsome and rich young widow, the rumor of whose 
acceptableness to Mr. Sclater had reached Mistress Croale’s 
ear before ever she had seen the minister himself. An unmis- 
takable shadow of confusion crossed his countenance; where- 
upon with consideration both for herself and him, the woman 
made haste to go on, as if she had but chosen her instance at 
merest random. 

“Na, na, sir! what my sowl may be in the eyes o’ my 
Maker, I hae ill tellin’,” she said, “but dinna ye threip upo’ 
me ’at it’s o’ the same vailue i’ eyes as the sowl o’ sic a 
fine bonny, winsome leddy as yon. In trouth,” she. added, 
and shook her head mournfully, “I haena had sae mony 


i6 


SIR GIBBIE. 


preevileeges; an’ maybe it’ll be seen till, an’ me passed owei* 
a wheen easier nor some fowk. ” 

“I wouldn’t have you build too much upon that, Mistress 
Croale,” said Mr. Sclater, glad to follow the talk down another 
turning, but considerably more afraid of rousing the woman 
than he had been before. 

The remark drove her behind the categorical stockade of 
her religious merits. 

‘ ‘ I pey my w’y, ” she said, with modest firmness. ‘ ‘ I put 
my penny, and whiles my saxpence, intil the plate at the door 
when I gang to the kirk — an’ 1 was jist thinkin’ I wad win 
there the morn’s nicht at farest, whan I turnt an’ saw ye stan’in 
there, sir; an’ little I thoucht — but that’s neither here nor there, 
I’m thinkin.’ I tell as feow lees as I can; I never sweir, nor 
tak the name o’ the Lord in vain, anger me ’at likes; I sell 
naething but the best whusky; I never hae but broth to my 
denner upo’ the Lord’s day, an’ broth canna brak the Sawbath, 
simmerin’ awa’ upo’ the bar o’ the grate, an’ hudin’ no lass 
frae the kirk; I confess, gien ye wull be speirin’, ’at I dinna 
read my buik sae aften as maybe I sud ; but, ’deed, sir, tho 
I says’t ’at sud baud my tongue, ye hae waur folk i’ yer perris 
nor Benjie Croale’s widow; an’ gien ye wunna hae a drap to 
weet yer ain whustle for the holy wark ye hae afore ye the 
morn’s mornin,’ I maun gang an’ mak my bed, for the lass is 
laid up wi’ a bealt thoom, an’ I maunna lat a’ thing gang to 
dirt an’ green bree; though I’m sure it’s rale kin’ o’ ye to come 
to luik efter me, an’ that’s mair nor Maister Rennie, honest 
gentleman, ever did me the fawvor o’, a’ the time he minis- 
tered the perris. I haen an ill name wi’ them ’at kens me, 
sir; that I can say wi’ a clean conscience; an’ ye may ken me 
weel gien ye wull. An’ there’s jist ae thing mair, sir : I gie ye 
my Bible-word, ’at never, gien I saw sign o’ repentance or 
turnin’ upo’ ane o’ them ’at pits their legs ’aneth my table — 
Wad ye luik intil the parlor, sir? No! — as I was sayin’, 
never did I, sin’ I keepit hoose, an’ never wad I set mysel’ to 
quench the smokin’ flax; I wad hae no man’s deith, sowl or 
body, lie at my door. ” 

“Well, well. Mistress Croale,” said the minister, somewhat 
dazed by the cataract he had brought upon his brain, and 
rather perplexed what to say in reply with any hope of reach- 
ing her, “I don’t doubt a word of what you tell me; but you 
know works cannot save us ; our best righteousness is but as 
filthy rags.” 

“ It’s weel I ken that, Mr. Sclater. An’ I’m sure I’ll be 
gluid to see ye, sir, ony time ye wad dee me the fawvor to 


THE PARLOR. 


17 


luik in as ye’re passin’ by. It’ll be none to yer shame, sir, for 
mine’s an honest hoose.” 

“I’ll do that, Mistress Croale,” answered the minister, glad 
to escape. “But mind,” he added, “I don’t give up my 
point for all that; and I hope you will think over what I have 
been saying to you — and that seriously.” 

With these words he left the shop rather hurriedly, in evident 
dread of a reply. 

Mistress Croale turned to the shelves behind her, took again 
the bottle she had replaced, poured out a large half-glass of 
whisky, and tossed it off. She had been compelled to think 
and talk of things unpleasant, and it had put her, as she said, 
d inairirdle. She was but one of the many who get the 
fuel of their life in at the wrong door, their comfort from the 
world-side of the universe. I cannot tell whether Mr. Sclater 
or she was the farther from the central heat. The woman 
had the advantage in this, that she had to expend all her force 
on mere self-justification, and had no energy left for vain-glory. 
It was with a sad sigh she set about the work of the house. 
Nor would it have comforted her much to assure her that hers 
was a better defence than any distiller in the country could 
make. Even the whisky itself gave her little relief; it seemed 
to scald both stomach and conscience, and she vowed never 
to take it again. But alas ! this time is never the time for self- 
denial; it is always the next time. Abstinence is so much 
more pleasant to contemplate upon the other side of indul- 
gence ! Yet the struggles after betterment that many a drunk- 
ard has made in vain, would, had his aim been high enough, 
have saved his soul from death, and turned the charnel of his 
life into a temple. Abject as he is, foiled and despised, such 
a one may not yet be half so contemptible as many a so- 
counted respectable member of society, who looks down on 
him from a height too lofty even for scorn. It is not the first 
and the last only, of whom many will have to change places; 
but those as well that come everywhere between. 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE PARLOR. 

The day went on, apd went out, its short auttiTftnaIT)right- 
ness quenched in a chilly fog. All along the Widdiehill, the 
gas was alight in the low-browed dingy shops. To the well- 


i8 


SIR GIBBIE. 


to-do citizen hitotcning home to the topmost business of the 
day, his dinner, these looked the abodes of unlovely poverty 
and mean struggle. Even to those behind their counters, in 
their back parlors, and in their rooms above, everything 
about them looked common, to most of them, save the own- 
ers, wearisome. But to yon pale-faced student, gliding in 
the glow of his red gown, through the grey mist back to his 
lodging, and peeping in at every open door as he passes, 
they are so full of mystery, that gladly would he yield all he 
has gathered from books, for one genuine glance of insight 
into the vital movement of the hearts' and households of which 
those open shops are the sole outward and visible signs. 
Each house is to him a nest of human birds, over which 
brood the eternal wings of love and purpose. Only such 
different birds are hatched from the same nest ! And what a 
nest was then the city itself ! — with its university, its schools, 
its churches, its hospitals, its missions ; its homes, its lodging 
houses, its hotels, its drinking shops, its houses viler still ; 
its factories, its ships, its great steamers ; and the same 
humanity busy in all ! — here the sickly lady walking in the 
panoply of love unharmed through the horrors of vicious suf- 
fering ; there the strong mother cursing her own child along 
half a street with an intensity and vileness of execration un- 
heard elsewhere ! The will of the brooding spirit must be a 
grand one, indeed, to enclose so much of what cannot be its 
will, and turn all to its purpose of eternal good ! Our 
knowledge of humanity, how much more our knowledge of 
the Father of it, is moving as yet but in the first elements. 

In his shed under the stair it had been dark for some time 
—too dark for work, that is, and George Galbraith had 
lighted a candle ; he never felt at liberty to leave off so long 
as a man was recognizable in the street by daylight. But 
now at last, with a sigh of relief, he rose. The hour of his 
redemption was come, the moment of it at hand. Out- 
wardly calm, he was within eager as a lover to reach Lucky 
Croale s back parlor. His hand trembled with expectation as 
he laid from it the awl, took from between his knees the 
great boot On the toe of which he had been stitching a patch, 
lifted^ the yoke of his leather apron over his head, and threw 
it aside. With one hasty glance around, as if he feared 
some enemy lurking near to prevent his escape, he caught 
up* a hat which looked as if it had beeji brushed with grease, 
pulled .*it on ''his head with both hands, 'stepped out quickly, 
closed the, door behind him, turned the key, left it in the 
lock, and made straight for his earthly paradise— -but wijth 


THE PARLOR. 


19 


chastened step. All IMistress Croale’s customers made a 
point of looking decent in the street — strove, in their very 
consciousness, to carry the expression of being on their way 
to their tea, not their toddy — or if their toddy, then not that 
they desired it, but merely that it was their custom always of aii 
afternoon : man had no choice — he must fill space, he must 
occupy himself; and if so, why not Mistress Croale’s the 
place, and the consumption of whisky the occupation ? But 
alas for their would-be seeming indifference ! Everybody in 
the lane, almost in the Widdiehill, knew every one of them, 
and knew him for what he was ; knew that every drop of 
toddy he drank was to him as to a miser his counted sover- 
eign ; knew that, as the hart for the water-brooks, so thirsted 
his soul ever after another tumbler ; that he made haste to 
swallow the last drops of the present, that he might behold 
the plenitude of the next steaming before him ; that, like 
the miser, he always understated the amount of the treasure 
he had secured, because the less he acknowledged, the more 
he thought he could claim. 

George was a tall man, of good figure, loosened and 
bowed. His face was well-favored, but not a little wronged 
by the beard and dirt of a week, through which it gloomed 
haggard and white. Beneath his projecting black brows, his 
eyes gleamed doubtful, as a wood-fire where white ash dims 
the glow. He looked neither to right nor left, but walked 
on with moveless dull gaze, noting nothing. 

“Yon’s his ain warst enemy,” said the kindly grocer-wife, 
as he passed her door. 

“Ay,” responded her customer, who kept a shop near by 
for old furniture, or anything that had been already once pos- 
sessed “ay, I daursay. But eh ! to see that puir^negleckit 

bairn o’ his nn scoorin’ aboot the toon yon gait — wi’ little o’ a 
jacket but the collar, an’ naething o’ the breeks but the doup 

eh, wuman ! it maks a mither’s hert sair to luik upo’ ’t. 

It’s a providence ’at Jus mither s weel awa an canna see t ; it 
wad gar her turn in her grave. ” ^ 

Ocorgc w 3 ,s the first 3.rriv3.1 3,t IVIistrcss Cros-lc s thcit night* 
He opened the door of the shop like a thief, and glided softly 
into the dim parlor, where the candles were not yet lit. There 
was light enough, however, from the busy little fire in the 
o-rate to show the clean sanded floor which it crossed with 
flickering shadows, the colored prints and cases of stuffed 
birds on the walls, the full-rigged barque suspended from the 
centre of the ceiling, and, chief of all shows of heaven or 
earth the black bottle on the table, with the tumblers, each 


20 


SIR GIBBIE. 


holding its ladle, and its wine-glass turned bottom upwards. 
Nor must I omit a part without which the rest could not have 
been a whole — the kettle of water that sat on the hob, softly- 
crooning. Compared with the place where George had been 
at work all day, this was indeed an earthly paradise. Nor 
was the presence and appearance of Mistress Croale an insig- 
nificant element in the paradisial character of the place. She 
w'as now in a clean white cap with blue ribbons. Her hair was 
nearly divided, and drawn back from her forehead. Every trace 
dirt and untidiness had disappeared from her person, which 
was one of importance both in size and in bearing. She wore 
a gown of some dark stuff wdth bright flowers on it, and a 
black silk apron. Her face was composed, almost to sadness, 
and throughout the evening, during which she waited in per- 
son upon her customers, she comported herself with such dig- 
nity, that her slow step and stately carriage seemed rather to 
belong to the assistant at some religious ceremony than to 
one who ministered at the orgies of a few drunken trades 
people. 

She was seated on the horse-hair sofa in the fire twilight, 
waiting for customers, when the face of Galbraith came peer- 
ing round the door-cheek. 

“Come awa’ ben,” she said, hospitably, and rose. But as 
she did so, she added with a little change of tone, “But I’m 
thinkin’ ye maun hae forgotten. Sir George. This is Setterday 
nicht, ye ken ; an’ gien it war to be Sunday mornin’ afore ye 
wan to yer bed, it wadna be the first time, an’ ye michtna be 
up ear eneuch to get yersel shaved afore kirk time. ” 

She knew as well as George himself that never by any chance 
did he go to church ; but it was her custom, as I fancy it is 
that of some other bulwarks of society and pillars of the 
church, “ for the sake of example,” I presume, to make not 
unfrequent allusion to certain observances, moral, religious, 
or sanatory as if they were laws that everybody kept. 

Galbraith lifted his hand, black, and embossed with cob- 
bler’s wax, and rubbed it thoughtfully over his chin • he ac- 
cepted the fiction offered him ; it was but the well-known pro- 
logue to a hebdomadal passage between them. What if he 
did not intend going to church the next day ? Was that any 
reason why he should not look a little tidier when his hard 
week's work was over, and his nightly habit was turned into 
the comparatively harmless indulgence of a Saturday, in sure 
hope of the day of rest behind ? 

“Troth, I didna min’ ’at it was Setterday,” he answered. 
“I wuss I had pitten on a clean sark, an’ washen my face. 


THE PARLOR. 


21 


But I s’ jist gang ower to the barber’s an’ get a scrape, an’ 
maybe some o’ them ’ill be here or I come back.” 

Mistress Croale knew perfectly that there was no clean shirt 
in George’s garret. She knew also that the shirt he then wore, 
which probably, in consideration of her maid’s festered hand, 
she would wash for him herself, was one of her late husband’s 
which she had given him. But George’s speech was one of 
those forms of sound words held fast by all who frequented 
Mistress Croale’s parlor, and by herself estimated at more than 
their worth. 

The woman had a genuine regard for Galbraith. Neither 
the character nor fate of one of the rest gave her a moment’s 
trouble; but in her secret mind she deplored that George 
should drink so inordinately, and so utterly neglect his child 
as to let him spend his life in the streets. She comforted her- 
self, however, with the reflection, that seeing he would drink, 
he drank with no bad companions — drank at all events where 
what natural wickedness might be in them, was suppressed by 
the sternness of her rule. Were he to leave her fold — for a 
fold in very truth, and not a sty, it appeared to her — and wan- 
der away to Jock Thamson’s or Jeemie Deuk’s, he would be 
drawn into loud and indecorous talk, probably into quarrel 
and uproar. 

In a few minutes George returned, an odd contrast visible 
between the upper and lower halves of his face. Hearing his 
approach she met him at the door. 

“Noo, Sir George, ” she said, “jist gang up to my room 
an’ hae a wash, an’ pit on the sark ye’ll see lyin’ upo’ the bed ; 
syne come doon an’ hae yer tum’ler comfortable. ” 

George’s whole soul was bent upon his drink, but he obey- 
ed as if she had been twice his mother. By the time he had 
finished his toilet, the usual company was assembled, and he 
appeared amongst them in all the respectability of a clean 
shirt and what purity besides the general adhesiveness of his 
trade-material would yield to a single ablution long delayed. 
They welcomed him all, with nod, or grin, or merry word, in 
individual fashion, as each sat measuring out his whisky, or 
pounding at the slow-dissolving sugar, or tasting the mixture 
with critical soul seated between tongue and palate. 

The conversation was for some time very dull, with a 
strong tendency to the censorious. For in their circle, not 
only were the claims of respectability silently admitted, but 
the conduct of this and that man of their acquaintance, or of 
public note, was pronounced upon with understood reference 
to those claims — now with smile of incredulity or pity, now 


22 


SIR GIBBIE. 


with headshake regretful or condemnatory — and this all the 
time that each was doing his best to reduce himself to a con- 
dition in which the word conduct could no longer have 
meaning in reference to him. 

All of them, as did their hostess, addressed Galbraith as 
Sir George, and he accepted the title with a certain unassum- 
ing dignity. For, if it was not universally known in the city, 
it was known to the best lawyers in it, that he was a baronet 
by direct derivation from the hand of King James the Sixth. 

The fire burned cheerfully, and the kettle making many 
journeys between it- and the table, things gradually grew more 
lively. Stories were told, often without any point, but not 
therefore without effect ; reminiscences, sorely pulpy and bro- 
ken at the edges, were offered and accepted with a laughter 
in which sober ears might have detected a strangely alien 
sound ; and adventures were related in which truth was no 
necessary element to reception. In the case of the postman, 
for instance, who had been dismissed for losing a bag of let- 
ters the week before, not one of those present believed a word 
he said ; yet as he happened to be endowed with a small 
stock of genuine humor, his stories were regarded with much 
the same favor as if they had been authentic. But the revival 
scarcely reached Sir George. He said little or nothing, but, 
between his slow gulps of toddy, sat looking vacantly into 
his glass. It is true he smiled absently now and then when 
the others laughed, but that was only for manners. Doubt- 
less he was seeing somewhere the saddest of all visions — the 
things that might have been. The wretched craving of the 
lower organs stilled, and something spared for his brain, I 
believe the chief joy his drink gave him lay in the power once 
more to feel himself a gentleman. The washed hands, the 
shaven face, the clean shirt, had something to do with it, no 
doubt, but the necromantic whisky had far more. 

What faded ghosts of ancestral dignity and worth and story 
the evil potion called up in the mind of Sir George ! — who him- 
self hung ready to fall, the last, or all but the last, mildewed 
fruit of the tree of Galbraith ! Ah ! if this one and that of his 
ancestors had but lived to his conscience, and with some 
thought of those that were to come after him, he would not 
have transmitted to poor Sir George in horrible addition to 
moral weakness, that physical proclivity which had now grown 
to such a hideous craving. To the miserable wretch himself 
it seemed that he could no more keep from drinking whisky 
than he could from breathing air. 


gibbie’s calling. 


23 


CHAPTER V. 
gibbie’s calling. 

I AM not sure that his father s neglect was not on the whole 
better for Gibbie than would have been the kindness of such 
a father persistently embodying itself. But the picture of Sir 
George, by the help of whisky and the mild hatching oven of 
Mistress Croale’s parlor, softly breaking from the shell of the 
cobbler, and floating a mild gentleman in the air of his luke- 
warm imagination, and poor wee Gibbie trotting outside in 
the frosty dark of the autumn night, through which the moon 
keeps staring down, vague and disconsolate, is hardly there- 
fore the less pathetic. Under the window of the parlor where 
the light of revel shone radiant through a red curtain, he 
would stand listening for a moment, then, darting oft' a few 
yards suddenly and swiftly like a scared bird, fall at once into 
his own steady trot — up the lane and down, till he reached 
the window again, where again he would stand and listen. 
Whether he made this departure and return twenty or a hun- 
dred times in a night, he nor any one else could have told. 
Sometimes he would for a change extend his trot along the 
Widdiehill, sometimes along the parallel Vennel, but never 
far from Jink Lane and its glowing window. Never moth 
haunted lamp so persistently. Ever as he ran, up this pave- 
ment and down that, on the soft sounding soles of his bare 
feet, the smile on the boy’s face grew more and more sleepy, 
but still he smiled and still he trotted, still paused at the 
window, and still started afresh. 

He was not so much to be pitied as my reader may think. 
Never in his life had he yet pitied himself. The thought 
of hardship or wrong had not occurred to him. It would 
have been difficult — impossible, I believe — to get the idea 
into his head that existence bore to him any other shape 
than it ought. Things were with him as they had always 
been, and whence was he to take a fresh start, and question 
what had been from the beginning ? Had any authority in- 
terfered, with a decree that Gibbie should no more scour the 
midnight streets, no more pass and repass that far-shining 
splendor of red, then indeed would bitter, though inarticulate 
complaint have burst from his bosom. But there was no evil 


24 


SIR GIBBIE. 


power to issue such a command, and Gibbie's peace was not 
invaded. 

It was now late, and those streets were empty ; neither car- 
riage nor cart, wheelbarrow nor truck, went any more bump- 
ing and clattering over their stones. They were well lighted 
with gas, but most of the bordering houses were dark. Now 
and then a single foot-farer passed with loud, hollow-sounding 
boots along the pavement ; or two girls would come laughing 
along, their merriment echoing rude in the wild stillness. A 
cold wind, a small, forsaken, solitary wind, moist with a thin 
fog, seemed, as well as wee Gibbie, to be roaming the night, 
for it met him at various corners, and from all directions. 
But it had nothing to do, and nowhere to go, and there it was 
not like Gibbie, the business of whose life was even now upon 
him, the mightiest hope of whose conscious being was now 
awake. 

All he expected, or ever desired to discover, by listening at 
the window, was simply whether there were yet signs of the 
company’s breaking up ; and his conclusions on that point 
were never mistaken : how he arrived at them it would be 
hard to say. Seldom had he there heard the voice of his 
father, still seldomer anything beyond its tone. This night, 
however, as the time drew near when they must go, lest the 
Sabbath should be broken in Mistress Croale’s decent house, 
and Gibbie stood once more on tiptoe, with his head just on 
the level of the window-sill, he heard his father utter two 
words : “Up Daurside” came to him through the window, in 
the voice he loved, plain and distinct. The words conveyed 
to him nothing at all ; the mere hearing of them made them 
memorable. For the time, however, he forgot them, for, by 
indications best known to himself, he perceived that the com- 
pany was on the point of separating, and from that moment 
did not take his eyes off the door until he heard the first 
sounds of its opening. As, however, it was always hard for 
Gibbie to stand still, and especially hard on a midnight so 
cold that his feet threatened to grow indistinguishable from 
the slabs of the pavement, he was driven, in order not to lose 
sight of it, to practise the art, already cultivated by him to a 
crab-like perfection, of running first backwards, then forwards 
with scarcely superior speed. But it was not long ere the 
much-expected sound of Mistress Croale’s voice heralded the 
hour for patience to blossom into possession. The voice was 
neither loud nor harsh, but clear and firm ; the noise that fol- 
lowed was both loud and strident. Voices had a part in it, 
but the movement of chairs and feet and the sudden contact 


gibbie’s calling. 


25 


of diiferent portions of the body with walls and tables, had a 
larger. The guests were obeying the voice of their hostess all 
in one like a flock of sheep, but it was poor shepherd-work to 
turn them out of the fold at midnight. Gibbie bounded up 
and stood still as a statute at the very door-cheek, until he 
heard Mistress Croale's hand upon the lock, when he bolted, 
trembling with eagerness, into the entry of a court a few 
houses nearer to the Widdiehill. 

One after one the pitiable company issued from its paradise, 
and each stumbled away, too far gone for leave-taking. Most 
of them passed Gibbie where he stood, but he took no heed ; 
his father was always the last — and the least capable. But, 
often as he left her door, never did it close behind him until 
with her own eyes Mistress Croale had seen Gibbie dart like 
an imp out of the court — to take him in charge, and, all the 
weary way home, hover, not very like a guardian angel, but 
not the less one in truth, around the unstable equilibrium of 
his fathers tall and swaying form. And thereupon com- 
menced a series of marvellous gymnastics on the part of wee 
Gibbie. Imagine a small boy with a gigantic top, which, six 
times his own size, he keeps erect on its peg, not by whipping 
it round, but by running round it himself, unfailingly apply- 
ing at the very spot and at the very moment, the precise 
measure of impact necessary to counterbalance its perpetual 
tendency to fall in one direction or another, so that the two 
have all the air of a single invention — such an invention as 
one might meet with in an ancient clock, contrived when men 
had time to mingle play with earnest — and you will have in 
your mind’s eye a real likeness of Sir George attended, any 
midnight in the week, by his son Gilbert. Home the big one 
staggered, reeled, gyrated, and tumbled ; round and round 
him went the little one, now behind, now before, now on this 
side, now on that, his feet never more than touching the 
ground but dancing about like those of a prize-fighter, his 
little arms up and his hands well forward, like flying but- 
tresses. And such indeed they were — buttresses which flew 
and flew all about a universally leaning tower. They propped 
it here, they propped it there ; with wonderful judgment and 
skill and graduation of force they applied themselves, and 
with perfect success. Not once, for the last year and a half, 
during which time we« Gibbie had been the nightly guide of 
Sir George’s homeward steps, had the self-disabled mass fallen 
prostrate in the gutter, there to snore out the night. 

The first special difficulty, that of turning the corner of 
Jink Lane and the Widdiehill, successfully overcome, the 


26 


SIR GIBBIE. 


twain went reeling and revolving along the street, much like 
a whirlwind that had forgotten the laws of gyration, until at 
length, it spun into the court, and up to the foot of the out- 
side stair over the baronet’s workshop. Then commenced 
the real struggle of the evening for Gibbie — and for his father 
too, though the latter was aware of it only in the mornentary 
and evanescent flashes of such enlightenment as made him just 
capable of yielding to the pushes and pulls of the former.' All 
up the outside and the two inside stairs, his waking and sleep- 
ing were as the alternate tic tac of a pendulum ; but Gibbie 
stuck to his business like a man, and his resolution and per- 
severance were at length, as always, crowned with victory. 

The house in which lords and ladies had often reposed was 
now filled with very humble folk, who were all asleep when Gib- 
bie and his father entered ; but the noise they made in ascend- 
ing caused no great disturbance of their rest ; for if any of them 
were roused for a moment it was but to recognize at once the 
cause of the tumult and with the remark, ‘ ‘ It’s only wee Gibbie 
luggin’ hame Sir George,” to turn on the other side and fall 
asleep again. 

Arrived at last at ‘the garret door, which stood wide open, 
Gibbie had small need of light in the nearly pitch darkness of 
the place, for there was positively nothing to stumble over or 
against between the door and the ancient four-post bed, 
which was all of his father’s house that remained to Sir 
George. With heavy shuffling feet the drunkard lumbered 
laboriously bedward ; and the bare posts and crazy frame 
groaned and creaked as he fell upon the oat-chaff that lay 
waiting him in place of the vanished luxury of feathers. Wee 
Gibbie flew at his legs, nor rested until the one after the 
other, he had got them on the bed ; if then they were not 
very comfortably deposited, he knew that, in his first turn, 
their owner would get them all right. 

And now rose the culmen of Gibbie’s day ! its cycle, round- 
ed through regions of banishment, returned to its nodus of 
bliss. In triumph he spread over his sleeping father his dead 
mother’s old plaid of Gordon tartan, all the bedding they had, 
and without a moment’s further delay — no shoes even to put 
off — crept under it, and nestled close upon the bosom of his 
unconscious parent. A victory more ! another day ended 
with success ! his father safe, and all his own ! the canopy of 
the darkness and the plaid over them, as if they were the 
only two in the universe ! his father unable to leave him — his 
for whole dark hours to come ! It was Gibbie’s paradise 
now ! His heaven was his father’s bosom, to which he 


A »UNDAY AT HOME. 


27 


clung as no infant yet ever clung to his mother’s. He 
never thought to pity himself that the embrace was all on his 
side, that no answering pressure came back from the prostrate 
form. He never said to himself, “ My father is a drunkard, 
but I must make the best of it ; he is all I have \” He clung to 
his one possession — only clung : this was his father — all in all 
to him. What must be the bliss of such a heart — of any 
heart, when it comes to know that there is a father of fathers, 
yea a father of fatherhood ! a father who never slumbers nor 
sleeps, but holds all the sleeping in his ever-waking bosom — 
a bosom whose wakefulness is the sole fountain of their 
slumber ! 

The conscious bliss of the child was of short duration, for 
in a few minutes he was fast asleep ; but for the gain of those 
few minutes only, the day had been well spent. 


CHAPTER VI. 

A SUNDAY AT HOME. 

Such were the events of every night, and such had they been 
sbice Gibbie first assumed this office of guardian — a time so 
long in proportion to his life that it seemed to him as one of 
the laws of existence that fathers got drunk and Gibbies took 
care of them. But Saturday night was always one of special 
bliss ; for then the joy to come spread its arms beneath and 
around the present delight ; all Sunday his father would be his. 
On that happiest day of all the week, he never set his foot out 
of doors, except to run twice to Mistress Croale’s, once to fetch 
the dinner which she supplied from her own table, and for 
which Sir George regularly paid in advance on Saturday before 
commencing his potations. 

But indeed the streets were not attractive to the child on 
Sundays : there were no shops open and the people in their 
Sunday clothes, many of them with their faces studiously set- 
tled into masks intended to express righteousness, were far 
less interesting, because less alive than the same people in 
their work-day attire, in their shops, or seated at their stalls, 
or driving their carts, and looking thoroughly human. As to 
going to church himself, such an idea had never entered his 
head. He had not once for a moment imagined that any- 
body would like him to go to church, that such as he ever 
went to church,, that church was at all a place to which Gib- 


28 


SIR GIBBIE. 


bies with fathers to look after should have any desire to go. 
As to what church-going meant, he had not the vaguest idea ; 
it had not even waked the glimmer of a question in his mind. 
All he knew was that people went to church on Sundays. It 
was another of the laws of existence, the reason of which he 
knew no more than why his father went every night to Jink 
Lane and got drunk. George, however, although he had 
taught his son nothing, was not without religion, and had 
notions of duty in respect of the Sabbath. Not even with the 
prize of whisky in view, would he have consented to earn a 
sovereign on that day by the lightest of work. , 

Gibbie was awake some time before his father, and lay 
revelling in love’s bliss of proximity. At length Sir George, 
the merest bubble of nature, awoke, and pushed him from 
him. 

The child got up at once, but only to stand by the bed- 
side. He said no word, did not even think an impatient 
thought, yet his father seemed to feel that he was waiting for 
him. After two or three huge yawns, he spread out his arms, 
but, unable to stretch himself, yawned again, rolled himself off 
the bed, and crept feebly across the room to an empty chest 
that stood under the skylight. There he seated himself, and 
for half an hour sat motionless, a perfect type of dilapidation, 
moral and physical, while a little way off stood Gibbie, look- 
ing on, like one awaiting a resurrection. At length he 
seemed to come to himself — the expected sign of which was 
that he reached down his hand towards the meeting of roof 
and floor, and took up a tiny last with a half-made boot up- 
on it. At sight of it in his father’s hands, Gibbie clapped 
his with delight — an old delight, renewed every Sunday since 
he could remember. That boot was for him ! and this being 
the second, the pair would be finished before night! By 
slow degrees of revival, with many pauses between, George 
got to work. He wanted no breakfast, and made no inquiry 
of Gibbie whether he had had any. But what cared Gibbie 
about breakfast! With his father all to himself, and that 
father working away at a new boot for him — for him who had 
never had a pair of any sort upon his feet since the woolen 
ones he wore in his mother’s lap, breakfast or no breakfast was 
much the same to him. It could never have occurred to him 
that it was his father’s part to provide him with breakfast. If 
he was to have none, it was Sunday that was to blame : there 
was no use in going to look for any when the shops were all 
shut, and everybody either at church, or closed in domestic 
penetralia, or out for a walk. More than contented, there- 


A SUNDAY AT HOME. 


29 


fore, while busily his father wedded welt and sole with 
stitches infrangible, Gibbie sat on the floor, preparing waxed 
ends, carefully sticking in the hog’s bristle and roiling the 
combination, with quite professional aptitude, between the 
flat of his hand and what of trouser-leg he had left, gazing 
eagerly between at the advancing master-piece. Occasion- 
ally the triumph of expectation would exceed his control, 
when he would spring from the floor, and caper and strut 
about like a pigeon — soft as a shadow, for he knew his father 
could not bear noise in the morning — or behind his back 
execute a pantomimic dumb show of delight, in which he 
seemed with difficulty to restrain himself from jumping upon 
him, and hugging him in his ecstasy. Oh, best of parents ! 
working thus even on a Sunday for his Gibbie, when every- 
body else was at church enjoying himself! But Gibbie never 
dared hug his father except when he was drunk — why, he 
could hardly have told. Relieved by his dumb show, he 
would return, quite as an aged grimalkin, and again deposit 
himself on the floor near his father where he could see his 
busy hands. 

All this time Sir George never spoke a word. Incredible 
as it may seem, however, he was continually, off and on, 
trying his hardest to think of some Sunday lesson to give his 
child. Many of those that knew the#boy, regarded him as a 
sort of idiot, drawing the conclusion from Gibbie’s practical 
honesty and his too evident love for his kind ; it was incred- 
ible that a child should be poor, unselfish, loving, and not 
deficient in intellect I His father knew him better, yet he 
often quieted his conscience in regard to his education, with 
the reflection that not much could be done for him. Still, 
every-now and then he would think perhaps he ought to do 
something : who could tell but the child might be damned 
for not understanding the plan of salvation.? and brooding 
over the matter this morning, as well as his headache would 
permit, he came to the resolution, as he had often done 
before, to buy a Shorter Catechism ; the boy could not learn 
it, but he would keep reading it to him, arid something 
might stick. Even now perhaps he could begin the course 
by recalling some of the questions and answers that had been 
the plague of his life every Saturday at school. He set his 
recollection to work, therefore, in the lumber-room of his 
memory, and again and again sent it back to the task, but 
could find nothing belonging to the catechism except the 
first question with its answer, and a few incoherent fragments 
of others. Moreover, he found his mind so confused and 


30 


SIR GIBBIE. 


incapable of continuous or concentrated effort, that he could 
not even keep “mans chief end'’ and the rosined end be- 
tween his fingers from twisting up together in the most extra- 
ordinary manner. Yet if the child but “had the question, ” 
he might get some good of it. The hour might come when 
he would say, “My father taught me that!” — who could 
tell ? And he knew he had the words correct, wherever he 
had dropped their meaning. For the sake of Gibbie’s immor- 
tal part, therefore, he w'ould repeat the answ^er to that first, 
most momentous of questions, over and over as he worked, 
in the hope of insinuating something — he could not say wFat 
■ — into the small mental pocket of the innocent. The first, 
therefore, and almost the only words which Gibbie heard 
from his fathers lips that morning, wxre these, dozens of 
times repeated — “Mans chief end is to glorify God, and to 
enjoy Him for ever.” But so far was Gibbie from perceiving 
in them any meaning, that even with his father's pronuncia- 
tion of chief end as chifenn they roused in his mind no 
sense or suspicion of obscurity. The word stuck there, not- 
withstanding ; but Gibbie was years a man before he found 
out w'hat a chifenn w^as. Where was the great matter? 
How^ many who have learned their catechism and deplore 
the ignorance of others, make the least effort to place their 
chief end even in the direction of that of their creation ? Is 
it not the constant thwarting of their aims, the rendering of 
their desires futile, and their ends a mockery, that alone pre- 
vents them and their lives from proving an absolute failure ? 
Sir George, with his inveterate, consuming thirst for whisky, 
was but the type of all w'ho would gain their bliss after the 
scheme of their owm fancies, instead of the scheme of their 
existence ; who would build their house after their own child- 
ish wilfulness instead of the ground-plan of their being. 
How was Sir George to glorify the God whom he could 
honestly thank for nothing but whisky, the sole of his gifts 
that he prized ? Over and over that day he repeated the 
words, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy 
Him for ever,” and all the time his imagination, his desire, 
his hope, were centered on the bottle, which w ith his very 
back he felt w'here it stood behind him, away on the floor at 
the head of his bed. Nevertheless w’hen he had gone over 
them a score of times or so, and Gibbie had begun, by a 
merry look and nodding of his head, to manifest that he 
knew what was coming next, the father felt more content 
w'ith himself than for years past ; and when he was satisfied 
that Gibbie knew all the words, though, indeed, they were 


A SUNDAY AT HOME. 


3: 


hardly more than sounds to him, he sent him, with a great 
sense of relief, to fetch the broth and beef and potatoes from 
Mistress Croale’s. 

Eating a real dinner in his father’s house, though without a 
table to set it upon, Gibbie felt himself a most privileged per- 
son. The only thing that troubled him was that his father ate 
so little. Not until the twilight began to show did Sir George 
really begin to revive, but the darker it grew without, the 
brighter his spirit burned. For, amongst not a few others, 
there was this strange remnant of righteousness in the man, thax 
he never would taste drink before it was dark in winter, or in 
summer before the regular hour for ceasing work had arrived ; 
and to this rule he kept, and that under far greater difficulties, 
on the Sunday as well. For Mistress Croale would not sell a 
drop of drink, not even on the sly, on the Sabbath-day ; she 
would fain have some stake in the hidden kingdom ; and 
George, who had not a Sunday stomach he could assume for 
the day any more than a Sunday coat, was thereby driven to 
provide his whisky and that day drink it at home ; when, 
with the bottle so near him, and the sense that he had not to 
go out to find his relief, his resolution was indeed sorely tried; 
but he felt that to yield would be to cut his last cable and be 
swept on the lee-shore of utter ruin. 

Breathless with eager interest, Gibbie watched his father s 
hands, and just as the darkness closed in, the boot was fin- 
ished. His father rose, and Gibbie, glowing with delight, 
sprang upon the seat he had left, while his father knelt upon 
the floor to try upon the unaccustomed foot the result from 
which he had just drawn the last. Ah, pity ! pity ! But'even 
Gibbie might by this time have learned to foresee it ! three 
times already had the same thing happened ; the boot would 
not go on the foot. The real cause of the failure it were use- 
less to inquire. Sir George said that, Sunday being the only 
day he could give to the boots, before he could finish them, 
Gibbie’s feet had always outgrown the measure. But it may 
be Sir George was not so good a maker as cobbler. That he 
meant honestly by the boy I am sure, and not the less sure 
for the confession I am forced -to make, that on each occasion 
when he thus failed to fit him, he sold the boots the next day 
at a fair price to a ready-made shop, and drank the proceeds. 
A stranger thing still was, that, although Gibbie had never yet 
worn boot or shoe, his father’s conscience was greatly relieved 
by the knowledge that he spent his Sundays in making boots 
for him. Had he been an ordinary child, and given him 
trouble, he would possibly have hated him ; as it was, he had 


32 


SIR GIBBIE. 


a great though sadly inoperative affection for the boy, which 
was an endless good to them both. 

After many bootless trials, bootless the feet must remain, 
and George, laying the failure down in despair, rose from his 
knees, and left Gibbie seated on the chest more like a king 
discrowned, than a beggar unshod. And like a king the little 
beggar bore his pain. He heaved one sigh, and a slow 
moisture gathered in his eyes, but it did not overflow. One 
minute only he sat and hugged his desolation — then, missing 
his father, jumped off the box to find him. 

He sat on the edge of the bed, looking infinitely more dis- 
consolate than Gibbie felt, his head and hands hanging down, 
a picture of utter dejection. Gibbie bounded to him, climbed 
on the bed, and nearly strangled him in the sharp embrace of 
his little arms. Sir George took him on his knees and kissed 
him, and the tears rose in his dull eyes. He got up with him, 
carried him to the box, placed him on it once more, and 
fetched a piece of brown paper from under the bed. From 
this he tore carefully several slips, with which he then pro- 
ceeded to take a most thoughtful measurement of the baffling 
foot. He was far more to be pitied than Gibbie, who would 
not have worn the boots an hour had they been the best fit in 
shoedom. The soles of his feet were very nearly equal in re- 
sistance to leather, and at least until the snow and hard frost 
came, he was better without boots. 

But now the darkness had fallen, and his joy was at the 
door. But he was always too much ashamed to begin to 
drink before the child : he hated to uncork the bottle before 
him. What followed was in regular Sunday routine. 

“Gangower to Mistress Croale’s, Gibbie,” he said, “wi 
my compliments.” 

Away ran Gibbie, nothing loath, and at his knock was ad- 
mitted. Mistress Croale sat in the parlor, taking her tea, and 
expecting him. She was always kind to the child. She could 
not help feeling that no small part of what ought to be spent 
on him came to her ; and on Sundays, therefore, partly for 
his sake, partly for her own, she always gave him his tea — nom- 
inally tea, really blue city-milk — with as much dry bread as he 
could eat, and a bit of buttered toast from her plate to finish 
off with. As he ate, he stood at the other side of the table ; 
he looked so miserable in her eyes that, even before her ser- 
vant, she was ashamed to have him sit with her ; but Gibbie 
was quite content, never thought of sitting, and ate in glad- 
ness, every now and then looking up with loving, grateful 
eyes, which must have gone right to the woman’s heart, had 


A SUNDAY AT HOME. 


33 


it not been for a vague sense she had of being all the time his 
enemy — and that although she spent much time in persuading 
herself that she did her best both for his father and him. 

When he returned, greatly refreshed, and the boots all buf 
forgotten, he found his father, as he knew he would, already 
started on the business of the evening. He had drawn the 
chest, the only seat in the room, to the side of the bed, 
against which he leaned his back. A penny candle was 
burning in a stone blacking bottle on the chimney piece, and 
bn the floor beside the chest stood the bottle of whisky, a 
jug of water, a stoneware mug, and a wine-glass. 

There was no fire and no kettle, whence his drinking was 
sad, as became the Scotch Sabbath in distinction from the 
Jewish. There, however, was the drink, and thereby his soul 
could live — yea, expand her mouldy wings ! Gibbie was far 
from shocked ; it was all right, all in the order of things, and 
he went up to his father with radiant countenance. Sir George 
put forth his hands and took him between his knees. An evil 
wind now swelled his sails, but the cargo of the crazy human 
hull was not therefore evil. 

“Gibbie,” he said, solemnly, “never ye drink a drap o’ 
whusky. Is^^ever ye rax oot the han’ to the boatle. Never ye 
drink anything but watter, callar watter, my man. ” 

As he said the words, he stretched out his own hand to the 
mug, lifted it to his lips, and swallowed a great gulp. 

“Dinna do’t, I tell ye, Gibbie,” he repeated. 

Gibbie shook his head with positive repudiation. 

“That’s richt, my man,” responded his father with satisfac- 
tion. “ Gien ever I see ye pree {^as/e) the boatle. I’ll wrastle 
frae my grave an’ fleg ye oot o’ the sma’ wuts ye hae, my 
man. ” 

Here followed another gulp from the mug. 

The threat had conveyed nothing to Gibbie. Even had he 
understood, it would have carried anything but terror to his 
father-worshipping heart. 

“Gibbie,’'’ resumed Sir George, after a brief pause, “div ye 
ken what fowk’ll ca’ ye whan I’m deid ? ” 

Gibbie again shook his head — with expression this time of 
mere ignorance. 

“They’ll ca’ ye Sir Gibbie Galbraith, my man,” said his 
father, “an’richtly, for it’ll be no nickname, though some 
may lauch ’cause yer father was a sutor, an’ mair ’at, for a’ 
that, ye haena a she© to yer fut yersel’, puir fallow ! Heedna 
ye what they say, Gibbie. Min’ ’at ye’re Sir Gibbie, an’ hae 
the honor o’ the family to baud up, my man — an’ that ye can 


34 


SIR GIBBIE. 


not dee an’ drink. This cursit drink’s been the ruin o’ a’ the 
Galbraiths as far back as 1 ken. ’Maist the only thing I can 
min’ o’ my gran’father — a big bonny man wi’ lang white 
hair — twise as big’s me, Gibbie — is seein’ him died drunk i’ 
the gutter o’ the pump. He drank ’maist a’ thing there was, 
Gibbie — Ian’s an’ lordship, till there was hardly an accre left 
upo’ haill Daurside to come to my father — ’maist naething 
but a wheen sma’ hooses. He was a guid man, my father ; 
but his father learnt him to drink afore he was ’maist oot o’ ’s 
coaties, an’ gae him nae schuilin’ ; an’ gien he red himsel’ o’ 
a’ ’at was left, it was sma’ won’er — only, ye see, Gibbie, what 
was to come o’ me ? I pit it till ye Gibbie — what was to 
come o’ me — Gien a kin’ neiper, ’at kent what it was to 
drink, an’ sae had a fallow-feelin’, hadna ta’en an’ learnt me 
my trade, the Lord kens what wad hae come o’ you an’ 
me, Gibbie, my man ! — Gang to yer bed, noo, an’ lea’ me to 
my ain thouchts ; no’ ’at they’re aye the best o’ company, 
laddie. But whiles they’re no that ill,” he concluded, with a 
weak smile, as some reflex of himself not quite unsatisfactory 
gloomed faintly in the besmeared mirror of his uncertain con- 
sciousness. 

Gibbie obeyed, and getting under the Gordon tartan, lay 
and looked out, like a weasel from its hole, at his father’s 
back. For half an hour or so Sir George went on drinking. 
All at once he started to his feet, and turning towards the bed 
a white face distorted with agony, kneeled down on the box 
and groaned out : 

“O God, the pains o’ hell hae gotten hand upo’ me. O 
Lord, I’m i’ the grup o’ Sawtan. The deevil o’ drink has me 
by the hause. I doobt, O Lord, ye’re gauin’ to damn me 
dreidful. What guid that’ll do ye, O Lord, I dinna ken, but 
I doobtna ye’ll dee what’s richt, only I wuss I hed never 
crossed ye i’ yer wull. I kenna what I’m to dee, or what’s 
to be deene wi’ me, or whaur ony help’s to come frae. I hae 
[ tried an’ tried to maister the drink, but I was aye whumled. 
i b'or ye see, Lord, kennin’ a’ thing as ye dee, ’at until I hae a 
drap i’ my skin, I canna even think ; I canna min’ the sangs 
I used to sing, or the prayers my mither learnt me sittin’ upo’ 
her lap. Till I hae swallowed a mou’fu’ or twa, things Juik 
sae awfu’-like ’at I’m fit to cut my thro’t ; an’ syne, ance I’m 
begun, there’s nae mair thoucht o’ endeeforin’ to behaud 
{withhold^ till I canna drink a draip mair. O God, what 
garred ye mak things ’at wad mak whusky, whan ye kenned 
it wad mak sic a beast o’ me ? 

He paused, stretched down his hand to the floor, lifted the 


A SITNDAY AT HOME. 35 

mug, and drank a huge mouthful ; then with a cough that 
sounded apologetic, set it down, and recommenced ; 

“O Lord, 1 doobt there’s nae houp for me, for the verra 
river o’ the watter o’ life wadna be guid to me wantin’ a drap 
frae the boatle intil ’t. It’s the w’y wi’ a’ hiz ’at drinks. It’s 
no ’at we’re drunkards. Lord — ow no ! it’s no that. Lord ; it’s 
only ’at we canna dee wantin’ the drink. We’re sair drink- 
ers, I maun confess, but no jist drunkards. Lord. I’m no 
drunk the noo ; I ken what I’m sayin’, an’ it’s sair trowth, 
but I cudna hae prayt a word to yer lordship gien I hadna 
had a jooggy or twa first. O Lord, deliver me fra the pooer 
o’ Sawtan. — O Lord ! O Lord ! I canna help mysel’. Dinna 
sen’ me to the ill place. Ye loot the deils gang intil the 
swine, lat me tee. ” 

With this frightful petition, his utterance began to grow in- 
distinct. Then he fell forward upon the bed, groaning, and 
his voice died gradually away. Gibbie had listened to all be 
said, but the awe of hearing his father talk to one unseen, 
made his soul very still, and when he ceased he fell asleep. 

Alas for the human soul inhabiting a drink-fouled brain ! 
It is a human soul still, and wretched in the midst of all that 
whisky can do for it. From the pit of hell it cries out. So 
long as there is that which can sin, it is a man. And the 
prayer of misery carries its own justification, when the sober 
petitions of the self-righteous and the unkind are rejected. 
He who forgives not is not forgiven, and the prayer of the 
Pharisee is as the weary beating of the surf of hell, while the 
cry of a soul out of its fire sets the heart-strings of love trem- 
bling. There are sins which men must leave behind them, 
and sins which they must carry with them. Society scouts 
the drunkard because he is loathsome, and it matters nothing 
whether society be right or wrong, while it cherishes in its 
very bosom vices which are, to the God-born thing we call 
the soul, yet worse poisons. Drunkards and sinners, hard 
as it may be for them to enter into the kingdom of heaven, 
must yet be easier to save than the man whose position, rep- 
utation, money, engross his heart and his care, who seeks 
the praise of men and not the praise of God. When I am 
more of a Christian, I shall have learnt to be sorrier for the 
man whose end is money or social standing than for the 
drunkard. But now my heart, recoiling from the one, is sore 
for the other — for the agony, the helplessness, the degrada- 
tion, the nightmare struggle, the wrongs and cruelties com- 
mitted, the duties neglected, the sickening ruin of mind and 
heart. So often, too, the drunkard is originally a style of 


36 


SIR GIBBIE. 


man immeasurably nobler than the money-maker ! Compare 
a Coleridge, Samuel Taylor or Hartley, with — no ; that man 
has not yet passed to his account. God has in his universe 
furnaces for the refining of gold, as well as for the burning of 
chaff and tares and fruitless branches ; and, however they 
may have offended, it is the elder brother who is the judge of 
all the younger ones. 

Gibbie slept some time. When he woke, it was pitch dark, 
and he was not lying on his father’s bosom. He felt about 
with his hands till he found his father’s head. Then he got 
up and tried to rouse him, and failing, to get him on to the 
bed. But in that too he was sadly unsuccessful: what with 
the darkness and the weight of him, the result of the boy’s 
best endeavor was, that Sir George half slipped, half rolled 
down upon the box, and from that to the floor. Assured then 
of his own helplessness, wee Gibbie dragged the miserable 
bolster from the bed, and got it under his father’s head ; then 
covered him with the plaid, and creeping under it, laid him- 
self on his father’s bosom, where soon he slept again. 

He woke very cold, and getting up, turned heels-over-head 
several times to warm himself, but quietly, for his father was 
still asleep. The room was no longer dark, for the moon 
was shining through the skylight. When he had got himself 
a little warmer, he turned to have a look at his father. The 
pale light shone full upon his face, and it was that, Gibbie 
thought, which made him look so strange. He darted to him, 
and stared aghast : he had never seen him look like that before, 
even when most drunk ! He threw himself upon him : his 
face was dreadfully cold. He pulled and shook him in fear 
— he could not have told of w4at, but he would not wake. 
He was gone to see what God could do for him there, for 
whom nothing more could be done here. 

But Gibbie did not know anything about death, and went 
on trying to wake him. At last he observed, that although his 
mouth was wide open, the breath did not come from it. 
Thereupon his heart began to fail him. But when he lifted 
an eyelid, and saw what was under it, the house rang with the 
despairing shriek of the little orphan. 


THE TOWN-SPARROW. 


37 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE TOWN-SPARROW. 

“This, too, will pass,” is a Persian word: I should like 
it better if it were : “This, too, shall pass.” 

Gibbie’s agony passed, for God is not the God of the dead 
but of the living. Through the immortal essence in him, life 
became again life, and he ran about the streets as before. 
Some may think that wee Sir Gibbie — as many now called him, 
some knowing the truth, and others in kindly mockery — 
would get on all the better for the loss of such a father ; but 
it was not so. In his father he had lost his Paradise, and was 
now a creature expelled. He was not so much to be pitied 
as many a child dismissed by sudden decree from a home to 
a school ; but the streets and the people and the shops, the 
horses and the dogs, even the penny-loaves though he was 
hungry, had lost half their precious delight, when his father 
was no longer in the accessible background, the heart of the 
blissful city. As to food and clothing, he did neither much 
better nor any worse than before : people were kind as usual, 
and kindness was to Gibbie the very milk of mother Nature. 
Whose the hand that proffered it, or what the form it took, 
he cared no more than a stray kitten cares whether the milk 
set down to it be in a blue saucer or a white. But he always 
made the right return. The first thing a kindness deserves is 
acceptance, the next is transmission : Gibbie gave both, w'ith- 
out thinking much about either. For he never had taken, and 
indeed never learned to take, a thought about what he should 
eat or what he should drink, or wherewithal he should be 
clothed — a fault rendering him, in the eyes of the economist 
of this world, utterly unworthy of a place in it. There is a 
world, however, and one pretty closely mixed up with this, 
though it never shows itself to one who has no place in it, the 
birds of whose air have neither storehouse nor barn, but are 
just such thoughtless cherubs — thoughtless for themselves, that 
is — as wee Sir Gibbie. It would be useless to attempt con- 
vincing the mere economist that this great city was a little 
better, a little happier, a little merrier, for the presence in it 
of the child, because he would not, even if convinced of the 
fact, recognize the gain ; but I venture the assertion to him. 


SIR GIBBIE. 


38 

that the conduct of not one of its inhabitants was the worse 
for the example of Gibbie’s apparent idleness ; and that not 
one of the poor women who now and then presented the small 
baronet with a penny, or a bit of bread, or a scrap of meat, 
or a pair of old trousers — shoes nobody gave him, and he 
neither desired nor needed any — ever felt the poorer for the 
gift, or complained that she should be so taxed. 

Positively or negatively, then, everybody was good to him, 
and Gibbie felt it ; but what could make up for the loss of 
his Paradise, the bosom of a father ? Drunken father as he 
was, I know of nothing that can or ought to make up for 
such a loss, except that which can restore it — the bosom of 
the Father of fathers. 

He roamed the streets, as all his life before, the whole of 
the day, and part of the night ; he took what was given him, 
and picked up what he found. There were some who would 
gladly have brought him within the bounds of an ordered life ; 
he soon drove them to despair, however, for the streets had been 
his nursery, and nothing could keep him out of them. But 
the sparrow and the rook are just as respectable- in reality, 
though not in the eyes of the hen-wife, as the egg-laying fowl, 
or the dirt-gobbling duck ; and, however Gibbie's habits might 
shock the ladies of Mr. Sclater s congregation who sought to 
civilize him, the boy was no more about mischief in the streets 
at midnight, than they were in their beds. They collected 
enough for his behoof to board him for a year with an old 
woman who kept a school, and they did get him to sleep one 
night in her house. But in the morning, when she v/ould not 
let him run out, brought him into the school-room, her kitchen, 
and began to teach him to write, Gibbie failed to see the good 
of it. He must have space, change, adventure, air, or life 
was not worth the name to him. Above all he must see 
friendly faces, and that of the old dame was not such. But 
he desired to be friendly with her, and once, as she leaned 
over him, put up his hand — not a very clean one, I am bound 
to give her the advantage of my confessing — to stroke her 
cheek : she pushed him roughly away, rose in indignation 
upon her crutch, and lifted her cane to chastise him for the 
insult. A class of urchins, to Gibbie’s eyes at least looking 
unhappy, were at the moment blundering through the twenty- 
third psalm. Ever after, even when now Sir Gilbert more 
than understood the great song, the words, “thy rod and thy 
staff,” like the spell of a necromancer would still call up the 
figure of the dame irate, in her horn spectacles and her black- 
ribboned cap, leaning with one arm on her crutch, and with 


THE TOWN-SPARROW. 


39 


the otner uplifting what was with her no mere symbol of 
authority. Like a shell from a mortar, he departed from the 
house. She hobbled to the door after him, but his diminutive 
figure many yards away, his little bare legs misty with swift- 
ness as he ran, was the last she ever saw of him, and her pupils 
had a bad time of it the rest of the day. He never even en- 
tered the street again in which she lived. Thus, after one 
night’s brief interval of respectability, he was again a rover of 
the city, a flitting insect that lighted here and there, and spread 
wings of departure the moment a fresh desire awoke. 

It would be difficult to say where he slept. In summer 
anywhere ; in winter where he could find warmth. Like ani- 
mals better clad than he, yet like him able to endure cold, he 
revelled in mere heat when he could come by it. Sometimes 
he stood at the back of a baker’s oven, for he knew all the 
haunts of heat about the city ; sometimes he buried himself 
in the sids {husks of oats') lying ready to feed the kiln of a 
meal-mill ; sometimes he lay by the furnace of the steam- 
engine of the water-works. One man employed there, when 
his time was at night, always made a bed for Gibbie ; he had 
lost his own only child, and this one of nobody’s was a com- 
fort to him. 

Even those who looked upon wandering as wicked, only 
scolded into the sweet upturned face, pouring gall into a cup 
of wine too full to receive a drop of it — and did not hand 
him over to the police. Useless verily that would have been, 
for the police would as soon have thought of taking up a town 
snarrow as Gibbie, and would only have laughed at the idea. 
They knew Gibbie’s merits better than any of those good 
people imagined his faults. It requires either wisdom or large 
experience to know that a child is not necessarily wicked even 
if born and brought up in a far viler entourage than was 
Gibbie. 

The merits the police recognized in him were mainly two — 
neither of small consequence in their eyes ; the first, the nega- 
tive, yet more important one, that of utter harmlessness ; the 
second, and positive one — a passion and power for render- 
ing help, taking notable shape chiefly in two ways, upon both 
of which I have already more than touched. The first was 
the peculiar faculty now pretty generally known — his great 
gift, some, his great luck, others called it — for finding things 
lost. It was no wonder the town crier had sought his acquain- 
tance, and when secured had cultivated it — neither a difficult 
task ; for the boy, ever since he could remember, had been 
in the habit, as often as he saw the crier, or heard his tuck of 


40 


SIR GIBBIE. 


drum in the distance, of joining him and following, until he 
had acquainted himself with all particulars concerning every- 
thing proclaimed as missing. The moment he had mastered 
the facts announced, he would dart away to search, and not 
unfrequently to return with the thing sought. But it was not by 
any means only things sought that he found. He continued 
to come upon things of which he had no simulacrum in his 
phantasy. These, having no longer a father to carry them to,’ 
he now, their owners unknown, took to the crier, who always 
pretended to receive them with a suspicion which Gibbie 
understood as little as the other really felt, and at once adver- 
tised them by drum and cry. What became of them after 
that, Gibbie never knew. If they did not find their owners, 
neither did they find their way back to Gibbie ; if their own- 
ers were found, the crier never communicated with him on 
the subject. Plainly he regarded Gibbie as the favored jackal, 
whose privilege it was to hunt for the crier, the royal lion of 
the city forest. But he spoke kindly to him, as well he might, 
and now and then gave him a penny. 

The second of the positive merits by which Gibbie found 
acceptance in the eyes of the police, was a yet more peculiar 
one, growing out of his love for his father, and his experience 
in the exercise of that love. It was, however, unintelligible 
to them, and so remained, except on the theory commonly 
adopted with regard to Gibbie, namely, that he wasna a* there. 
Not the less was it to them a satisfactory whim of his, seeing 
it mitigated their trouble as guardians of the nightly peace and 
safety. It was indeed the main cause of his being, like them- 
selves, so much in the street at night ; seldom did Gibbie seek 
his lair — I cannot call it couch — before the lengthening hours 
of the morning. If the finding of things was a gift, this other 
peculiarity was a passion — and a right human passion — abso- 
lutely possessing the child ; it was, to play the guardian angel 
to drunk folk. If such a distressed human craft hove in 
sight, he would instantly bear down upon and hover about 
him, until resolved as to his real condition. If he was in 
such distress as to require assistance, he never left him till he 
saw him safe within his own door. The police asserted that 
wee Sir Gibbie not only knew every drunkard in the cit}^, 
and where he lived, but where he generally got drunk as 
well. That one was in no danger of taking the wrong turn- 
ing, upon whom Gibbie was in attendance, to determine, by 
a shove on this side or that, the direction in which the hesi- 
tating, uncertain mass of stultified humanity was to go. He 
seemed a visible embodiment of that special providence which 


THE TOWN-SPARROW. 


41 


is said to watch over drunk people and children, only here a 
child was the guardian of the drunkard, and in this branch 
of his mission, was well known to all who, without qualify- 
ing themselves for coming under his cherubic cognizance, 
were in the habit of now and then returning home late. He 
was least known to those to whom he rendered most assist- 
ance. Rarely had he thanks for it, never halfpence, but not 
unfrequently blows and abuse. For the last he cared noth- 
ing ; the former, owing to his great agility, seldom visited him 
w'ith any directness. A certain reporter of humorous scan- 
dal, after his third tumbler, would occasionally give a graphic 
description of what, coming from a supper party, he once 
saw about two o’clock in the morning. In the great street of 
the city, he overhauled a huge galleon, which proved, he de- 
clared, to be the provost himself, not exactly water-\o%%^A, 
and yet not very buoyant, but carrying a good deal of sail. 
He might possibly have escaped very particular notice, he 
said, but for the assiduous attendance upon him of an absurd 
little cock-boat, in the person of wee Gibbie — the two remind- 
ing him right ludicrously of the Spanish Armada. Round 
and round the bulky provost gyrated the tiny baronet, like a 
little hero of the ring, pitching into him, only with open- 
handed pushes, not with blows, now on this side and now on 
that — not after such fashion of sustentation as might have 
sufficed with a man of ordinary size, but throwing all his force 
now against the provost’s bulging bows, now against his over- 
leaning quarter, encountering him now as he lurched, now as 
he heeled, until at length he landed him high, though certainly 
not dry, on the top of his own steps. The moment the butler 
opened the door, and the heavy hulk rolled into dock, Gibbie 
darted off as if he had been the wicked one tormenting the right- 
eous, and in danger of being caught by a pair of holy tongs. 
Whether the tale was true or not, I do not know ; with after- 
dinner humorists there is reason for caution. Gibbie was not 
offered the post of henchman to the provost, and rarely could 
have had the chance of claiming salvage for so distinguished 
a vessel, seeing he generally cruised in waters where such 
craft seldom sailed. Though almost nothing could now have 
induced him to go down Jink Lane, yet about the time the 
company at Mistress Croale’s would be breaking up, he would 
on most nights be lying in wait a short distance down the 
Widdiehill, ready to minister to that one of his father’s old 
comrades who might prove most in need of his assistance ; 
and if he showed him no gratitude, Gibbie had not been 


42 


SIR GIBBIE. 


trained in a school where he was taught to expect or even to 
wish for any. 

I could now give a whole chapter to the setting forth of the 
pleasures the summer brought him, city summer as ^it was, 
but I must content myself wdth saying that first of these, and 
not least, was the mere absence of the cold of the other seasons, 
bringing with it many privileges. He could lie down any- 
where and sleep when he would ; or spend, if he pleased, 
whole nights awake, in a churchyard, or on the deck of some 
vessel, discharging her cargo at the quay, or running about 
the still, sleeping streets. Thus he got to know the shapes of 
some of the constellations, and not a fe\v of the aspects of the 
heavens. But even then he never felt alone, for he gazed at 
the vast from the midst of a cityful of his fellows. Then 
there were the scents of the laylocks and the roses and the 
carnations and the sweet-peas, that came floating out from the 
gardens, contending sometimes with those of the grocers’ and 
chemists’ shops. Now and then too he came in for a small 
feed of strawberries, which were very plentiful in their season. 
Sitting then on a hospitable doorstep, with the feet and faces 
of friends passing him in both directions, and love embodied 
in the warmth of summer all about him, he would eat his 
strawberries, and inherit the earth. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

SAMBO. 

No ONE was so sorry for the death of Sir George, or had so 
many kind words to say in memory of him, as Mistress Croale. 
Neither was her sorrow only because she had lost so good a 
customer, or even because she had liked the man ; I believe it 
was much enhanced by a vague doubt that after all she was 
to blame for his death. In vain she said to herself, and said 
truly, that it would have been far worse for him, and Gibbie 
too, had he gone elsewhere for his drink ; she could not get 
the account settled with her conscience. She tried to relieve 
herself by being kinder than before to the boy; but she 
was greatly hindered in this by the fact that, after his 
father’s death, she could not get him inside her door. That his 
father was not there — would not be there at night, made the 
place dreadful to him. This addition to the trouble of mind 
she already had on account of the nature of her business, was 


SAMBO. 


43 


the cause, I believe, why, after Sir George's death, she went 
down the hill v/ith accelerated speed. She sipped more fre- 
quently from her own bottle, soon came to “ tasting with" her 
customers, and after that her descent was rapid. She no 
longer refused drink to women, though for a time she always 
gave it under protest ; she winked at card-playing ; she grew 
generally more lax in her administration ; and by degrees a 
mist of evil fame began to gather about her house. There- 
upon her enemy, as she considered him, the Rev. Clement 
Sclater, felt himself justified in moving more energetically for 
the withdrawal of her license, which, with the support of out- 
raged neighbors, he found no difficulty in effecting. She 
therefore flitted to another parish, and opened a worse house 
in a worse region of the city — on the river-bank, namely, some 
little distance above the quay, not too far to be within easy 
range of sailors, and the people employed about the vessels 
loading or discharging cargo. It pretended to be only a lodg- 
ing-house, and had no license for the sale of strong drink, but 
nevertheless, one way and another, a great deal was drunk in 
the house, and, as always card-playing, and sometimes worse 
things were going on, getting more vigorous ever as the day- 
light waned, frequent quarrels and occasional bloodshed was 
the consequence. For sometime, however, nothing very seri- 
ous brought the place immediately within the conscious ken of 
the magistrates. 

In the second winter after his father’s death, Gibbie wander- 
ing everywhere about the city, encountered Lucky Croale in 
the neighborhood of her new abode ; down there she was 
Mistress no longer, but with a familiarity scarcely removed 
from contempt, w'as both mentioned and addressed as Lucky 
Croale. The repugnance which had hitherto kept Gibbie 
from her having been altogether to her place and not to her- 
self, he at once accompanied her home, and after that weni 
often to the house. ^ He was considerably surprised when first 
he heard words from her mouth for using which she had for- 
merly been in the habit of severely reproving her guests ; but 
he always took things as he found them, and when ere long 
he had to hear such occasionally addressed to himself, when 
she happened to be more out of temper than usual, he never 
therefore questioned her friendship. What more than any- 
thing else attracted him to her house, however, was the jolly 
ma.nners and open-hearted kindness of most of the sailors 
who frequented it, with almost all of whom he was a favorite ; 
and it s<X)n came about that when his ministrations to the in- 
capable were over, he would spend the rest of the night more 


44 


SIR GIBBIE. 


frequently there than anywhere else ; until at last he gave up, in 
a great measure, his guardianship of the drunk in the streets for 
that of those who were certainly in much more danger of 
mishap at Lucky Croale s. Scarcely a night passed when he 
was not present at one or more of the quarrels of which the 
place was a hot-bed ; and as he never by any chance took a 
part or favored one side more than another, but confined him- 
self to an impartial distribution of such peace-making blan- 
dishments as the ever-springing fountain of his affection took 
instinctive shape in, the wee baronet came to be regarded by 
the better sort of the rough fellows, almost as the very identi- 
cal sweet little cherub, sitting perched up aloft, whose depart- 
ment in the saving business of the universe it was, to take 
care of the life of poor Jack. I do not say that he was al- 
ways successful in his endeavors at atonement, but beyond a 
doubt Lucky Croale’s houff was a good deal less of a hell 
through the haunting presence of the child. He was not 
shocked by the things he saw, even when he liked them least. 
He regarded the doings of them much as he had looked upon 
his father’s drunkenness — as a pitiful necessity that overtook 
men — one from which there was no escape, and which caused 
a great need for Gibbies. Evil language and coarse behavior 
alike passed over him, without leaving the smallest stain upon 
heart or conscience, desire or will. No one could doubt it 
who considered the clarity of his face and eyes, in which the 
occasional but not frequent expression of keenness and promp- 
titude scarcely even ruffled the prevailing look of unclouded 
heavenly babyhood. 

If any one thinks I am unfaithful to human fact, and over- 
charge the description of this child, I on my side doubt the 
extent of the experience of that man or woman. I admit the 
child a rarity, but a rarity in the right direction, and therefore 
a being with whom humanity has the greater need to be made 
acquainted. I admit that the best things are the commonest, 
but the highest types and the best combinations of them are 
the rarest. There is more love in the world than anything 
else, for instance ; but the best love and the individual in 
whom love is supreme are the rarest of all things. That for 
which humanity has the strongest claim upon its workmen, 
is the representation of its own best ; but the loudest demand 
of the present day is for the representation of that grade of 
humanity of which men see the most— -that type of things 
which could never have been but that it might pass. The 
demand marks the commonness, narrowness, low-leveled sat- 
isfaction of the age. It loves its own — not that which might 


SAMBO. 


45 


be, and ought to be its own — not its better self, infinitely 
higher than its present, for the sake of whose approach it 
exists. I do not think that the age is worse in this respect 
than those which have preceded it, but that vulgarity, and a 
certain vile contentment swelling to self-admiration, have be- 
come more vocal than hitherto ; just as unbelief, which I 
think in reality less prevailing than in former ages, has be- 
come largely more articulate, and thereby more loud and 
peremptory. But whatever the demand of the age, I insist 
that that which ought to be presented to its beholding, is the 
common good uncommonly developed, and that not because 
of its rarity, but because it is truer to humanity. Shall I ad- 
mit those conditions, those facts, to be true exponents of 
humanity, which, except they be changed, purified, or aban- 
doned, must soon cause that humanity to cease from its very 
name, must destroy its very being ? To make the admission 
would be to assert that a house may be divided against itself, 
and yet stand. It is the noble, not the failure from the 
noble, that is the true human ; and if I must show the fail- 
ure, let it ever be with an eye to the final possible, yea, im- 
perative, success. But in our day, a man who will accept 
any oddity of idiosyncratic development in manners, tastes, 
or habits, will refuse, not only as improbable, but as incon- 
sistent with human nature, the representation of a man try- 
ing to be merely as noble as is absolutely essential to his be- 
ing — except, indeed, he be at the same time represented as 
failing utterly in the attempt, and compelled to fall back 
upon the imperfections of humanity, and acknowledge them 
as its laws. Its improbability, judged by the experience of 
most men, I admit ; its unreality in fact I deny ; and its ab- 
solute unity with the true idea of humanity, I believe and 
assert. 

It is hardly necessary for me now to remark, seeing my 
narrative must already have suggested it, that what kept Gib- 
bie pure and honest was the rarely-developed, ever-active love 
of his kind. The human face was the one attraction to him 
in the universe. In deep fact, it is so to everyone ; I state 
but the commonest reality in creation ; only in Gibbie the 
fact had come to the surface ; the common thing was his in 
uncommon degree and potency. Gibbie knew no music 
except the voice of man and woman ; at least no other had 
as yet alfected him. To be sure he had never heard much. 
Drunken sea-songs he heard every night almost ; and now 
and then on Sundays he ran through a zone of psalm-sing- 
ing ; but neither of those could well be called music. There 


46 


SIR GIBBIE. 


hung a caged bird here and there at a door in the poorer 
streets ; but Gibbie’s love embraced the lower creation also, 
and too tenderly for the enjoyment of its melody. The 
human bird loved liberty too dearly to gather anything but 
pain from the song of the little feathered brother who had 
lost it, and to whom he could not minister as to the drunk- 
ard. In general he ran from the presence of such a prisoner. 
But sometimes he would stop and try to comfort the naked 
little Freedom, disrobed of its space, and on one occasion 
was caught in the very act of delivering a canary that hung 
outside a little shop. Any other than wee Gibbie would have 
been heartily cuffed for the offence, but the owner of the 
bird only smiled at the would-be liberator, and hung the 
cage a couple of feet higher on the wall. With such a pas- 
sion of affection, then, finding vent in constant action, is it 
any wonder Gibbie^s heart and hands should be too full for 
evil to occupy them even a little ? 

One night in the spring, entering Lucky Croale’s common 
room, he saw there for the first time a negro sailor, whom the 
rest called Sambo, and was at once taken with his big, dark, 
radiant eyes, and his white teeth continually uncovering them- 
selves in good-humored smiles. Sambo had left the vessel in 
which he had arrived, was waiting for another, and had taken 
up his quarters at Lucky Croale's. Gibbie's advances he met 
instantly, and in a few days a strong mutual affection had 
sprung up between them. To Gibbie Sambo speedily became 
absolutely loving and tender, and Gibbie made him full re- 
turn of devotion. 

The negro was a man of immense muscular power, like 
not a few of his race, and, like most of them, not easily pro- 
voked, inheriting not a little of their hard-learned long-suffer- 
ing. He bore even with those who treated him with far 
worse than the ordinary superciliousness of white to black ; 
and when the rudest of city boys mocked him, only showed 
his teeth by way of smile. The ill-conditioned among Lucky 
Croale’s customers and lodgers were constantly taking advan- 
tage of his good nature, and presuming upon his forbear- 
ance ; but so long as they confined themselves to mere inso- 
lence, or even bare-faced cheating, he endured with marvel- 
lous temper. It was possible, however, to go too far even 
with him. 

One night Sambo was looking on at a game of cards, in which 
all the rest in the room were engaged. Happening to laugh 
at some turn it took, one of them, a Malay, who was losing, 
was offended, and abused him. Others objected to his hav- 


SAMBO. 


47 


ing fun without risking money, and required him to join in 
the game. This for some reason or other he declined, and 
when the whole party at length insisted, positively re- 
fused. Thereupon they all took umbrage, nor did most of 
them make many steps of the ascent from displeasure to in- 
dignation, wrath, revenge ; and then ensued a row. Gibbie 
had been sitting all the time on his friend’s knee, every now 
and then stroking his black face, in which, as insult followed 
insult, the sunny blood kept slowly rising, making the balls 
of his eyes and his teeth look still whiter. At length a savage 
from Greenock threw a tumbler at him. Sambo, quick as a 
lizard, covered his face with his arm. The tumbler falling 
from it, struck Gibbie on the head — not severely, but hard 
enough to make him utter a little cry. At that sound, the 
latent fierceness came wide awake in Sambo. Gently as a 
nursing mother he set Gibbie down in a corner behind him, 
then with one rush sent every Jack of the company sprawling 
on the floor, with the table and bottles and glasses atop of 
them. At the vision of their plight his good humor instantly 
returned, he burst into a great hearty laugh, and proceeded at 
once to lift the table from off them. That effected, he caught 
up Gibbie in his arms, and carried him with him to bed. 

In the middle of the night Gibbie half woke, and, finding 
himself alone, sought his father’s bosom ; then, in the confu- 
sion between sleeping and waking, imagined his father’s death 
come again. Presently he remembered it was in Sambo’s 
arms he fell asleep, but where he was now he could not tell ; 
certainly he was not in bed. Groping, he pushed a door, 
and a glimmer of light came in. He was in a closet of the 
room in which Sambo slept — and something was to do about 
his bed. He rose softly and peeped out. There stood sev- 
eral men, and a struggle was going on — nearly noiseless. 
Gibbie was half-dazed and could not understand ; but he had 
little anxiety about Sambo, in whose prowess he had a tri- 
umphant confidence. Suddenly came the sound of a great 
gush, and the group parted from the bed and vanished. Gib- 
bie darted towards it. The words, ‘ ‘ O Lord Jesus !'’ came 
to his ears, and he heard no more ; they were poor Sambo’s 
last in this world. The light of a street lamp fell upon the 
bed ; the blood was welling, in great thick throbs, out of his 
huge black throat. They had bent his head back, and the 
gash gaped wide. 

For some moments Gibbie stood in ghastly terror. No 
sound except a low gurgle came to his ears, and the horror 
of the stillness overmastered him. He never could recall 


48 


SIR GIBBIE. 


what came next. When he knew himself again he was in the 
street, running like the wind, he knew not whither. It was 
not that he dreaded any hurt to himself ; horror, not fear, 
was behind him. 

His next recollection of himself was in the first of the 
morning, on the lofty chain-bridge over the river Daur. Be- 
fore him lay he knew not what, only escape from what was be- 
hind. His faith in men seemed ruined. The city, his home, 
was frightful to him. Quarrels and curses and blows he had 
been used to, and amidst them life could be lived. If he did 
not consciously weave them into his theories, he unconsciously 
wrapped them up in his confidence, and was at peace. But 
the last night had revealed something unknown before. It 
was as if the darkness had been cloven, and through the cleft 
he saw into hell. A thing had been done that could not be 
undone, and he thought it must be what people called 
murder. And Sambo was such a good man ! He was 
almost as good a man as Gibbie’s father, and now he would 
not breathe any more ! Was he gone where Gibbie’s father 
was gone ? Was it the good men that stopped breathing and 
grew cold ? But it was those wicked men that had deaded 
Sambo ! And with that his first vague perception of evil and 
wrong in the world began to dawn. 

He lifted his head from gazing down on the dark river. 
A man was approaching the bridge. He came from the awful 
city ! Perhaps he wanted him ! He fled along the bridge 
like a low-flying water-bird. If another man had appeared 
at the other end, he would have got through between the 
rods, and thrown himself into the river. But there was no one 
to oppose his escape ; and after following the road a little 
way up the river, he turned aside into a thicket of shrubs on 
the nearly precipitous bank, and sat down to recover the 
breath he had lost more from dismay than exertion. 

The light grew. All at once he descried, far down the river, the 
steeples of the city. Alas ! alas ! there lay poor black Sambo, 
so dear to wee Sir Gibbie, motionless and covered with blood ! 
He had two red mouths now, but was not able to speak a 
word with either ! They would carry him to a churchyard and 
lay him in a hole to lie there for ever and ever. Would all the 
good people be laid into holes and leave Gibbie quite alone ? 
Sitting^ and brooding thus, he fell into a dreamy state, 
in which, brokenly, from here and there, pictures of his 
former life grew out upon his memory. Suddenly, plainer 
than all the rest, came the last time he stood under Mistress 
Croale s window, waiting to help his father home. The same 


SAMBO. 


49 


instant, back to the ear of his mind came his father’s two 
words, as he had heard them through the window — “ Up 
Daurside. ” 

“Up Daurside!” — Here he was upon Daurside — a little 
way up too : he would go farther up. He rose and went on, 
while the great river kept flowing the other way, dark and ter- 
rible, down to the very door inside which lay Sambo with the 
huge gape in his big throat. 

hleantime the murder came to the knowledge of the police. 
Mistress Croale herself giving the information, and all in the 
house were arrested. In the course of their examination, it 
came out that wee Sir Gibbie had gone to bed with the mur- 
dered man, and was now nowhere to be found. Either they 
had murdered him too, or carried him off. The news spread, 
and the whole city was in commotion about his fate. It was 
credible enough that persons capable of committing such a 
crime on such an inoffensive person as the testimony showed 
poor Sambo, would be capable also of throwing the life of a 
child after that of the man to protect their own. The city 
was searched from end to end, from side to side, and from 
cellar to garret. Not a trace of him was to be found — but in- 
deed Gibbie had always been easier to find than to trace, for 
he had no belongings of any sort to betray him. No one 
dreamed of his having fled straight to the country, and search 
was confined to the city. 

The murderers were at length discovered, tried, and execut- 
ed. They protested their innocence with regard to the child 
and therein nothing appeared against them beyond the fact 
that he was missing. The result, so far as concerned Gibbie, 
was, that the talk of the city, where almost everyone knew 
him, was turned, in his absence, upon his history ; and from 
the confused mass of hearsay that reached him, Mr. Sclater 
set himself to discover and verify the facts. For this purpose 
he burrowed about in the neighborhoods Gibbie had chiefly 
frequented, and was so far successful as to satisfy himself that 
Gibbie, if he was alive, was Sir Gilbert Galbraith, Baronet ; 
but his own lawyer was able to assure him that not an inch 
of property remained anywhere attached to the title. There 
were indeed relations of the bo/s mother, who were of some 
small consequence in a neighboring county, also one in busi- 
ness in Glasgow, or its neighborhood, reported wealthy ; but 
these had entirely disowned her because of her marriage. All 
hlr. Sclater discovered besides was, in a lumber-room next 
the garret in which Sir George died, a box of papers — a 
glance at whose contents showed that they must at least prove 


SIR GIBBIE. 


a great deal of which he was already certain from other 
sources. A few of them had to do with the house in which 
they were found, still known as the Auld Hoose o Galbraith; 
but most of them referred to property in land, and many 
were of ancient date. If the property were in the hands of 
descendants of the original stock, the papers would be of 
value in their eyes ; and, in any case, it would be well to see 
to their safety. Mr. Sclater therefore had the chest removed 
to the garret of the manse, where it stood thereafter, little re- 
garded, but able to answer for more than itself. 


CHAPTER IX. 

ADRIFT. 

Gibbie was now without a home. He had had a whole 
city for his dwelling, every street of which had been to him 
as another hall in his own house, every lane as a passage from 
one set of rooms to another, every court as a closet, every 
house as a safe, guarding the only possessions he had, the only 
possessions he knew how to value — his fellow-mortals, radi- 
ant with faces, and friendly with hands and tongues. Great 
as was his delight in freedom, a delight he revelled in from 
morning to night, and sometimes from night to morning, he 
had never had a notion of it that reached beyond the city, he 
never longed for larger space, for wider outlook. Space 
and outlook he had skyward — and seaward when he would, 
but even into these regions he had never yet desired to go. 
His world was the world of men ; the presence of many was 
his greater room ; his people themselves were his world. He 
had no idea of freedom in dissociation with human faces and 
voices and eyes. But now he had left all these, and as he 
ran from them a red pall seemed settling down behind him, 
wrapping up and hiding away his country, his home. For 
the first time in his life, the fatherless, motherless, brotherless, 
sisterless stray of the streets felt himself alone. The sensation 
was an awful one. He had lost so many, and had not one 
left ! That psh in Sambo’s black throat had slain a “ whole 
cityful.” His loneliness grew upon him, until again he darted 
aside from the road into the bush, this time to hide from the 
Spectre of the desert — the No Man. Deprived of human 
countenances, the face of creation was a mask without eyes, 
and liberty a mere negation. Not that Gibbie had ever 


ADRIFT. 


51 


thought about liberty ; he had only enjoyed : not that he had 
ever thought about human faces ; he had only loved them, 
and lived upon their smiles. — ‘‘Gibbie wadna" need to gang 
to h aven,"' said Mysie, the baker’s daughter, to her mother, 
one night, as they walked home from a merry-making. 

‘ ‘ What for that, lassie returned her mother. ‘ ‘ Cause he wad 
be meeserable whaur there was nae drunk fowk,” answered 
INIysie. And now it seemed to the poor, shocked, heart- 
wounded creature, as if the human face were just the one 
thing he could no more look upon. One haunted him, the 
black one, with the white staring eyes, the mouth in its throat 
and the white grinning teeth. 

It was a cold, fresh morning, cloudy and changeful, towards 
the end of April. It had rained, and would rain again ; it 
might snow. Heavy undefined clouds, with saffron breaks 
and borders, hung about the east, but what was going to hap- 
pen there — at least he did not think ; he did not know east 
from west, and I doubt whether, although he had often seen 
the sun set, he had ever seen him rise. Yet even to him, city- 
creature that he was, it was plain something was going to 
happen there. And happen it did presently, and that with a 
splendor that for a moment blinded Gibbie. For just at the 
horizon there was a long horizontal slip of blue sky, and 
through that crack the topmost arc of the rising sun shot sud- 
denly a thousand arrows of radiance into the brain of the boy. 
But the too-much light scorched there a blackness instantly; 
and to the soul of Gibbie it was the blackness of the room 
from which he had fled, and upon it out came the white eye- 
balls and the brilliant teeth of his dead Sambo, and the red 
burst from his throat that answered the knife of the Malay. 
He shrieked, and struck with his hands against the sun from 
which came the terrible vision. Had he been a common 
child, his reason would have given away ; but one result of 
the overflow of his love was, that he had never yet known 
fear for himself. His sweet confident face, innocent eyes, 
and caressing ways, had almost always drawn a response more 
or less in kind ; and that certain some should not repel him, 
was a fuller response from them than gifts from others. Ex- 
cept now and then, rarely, a street boy a little bigger than 
himself, no one had ever hurt him, and the hurt upon these 
occasions had not gone very deep, for the child was brave 
and hardy. So now it was not fear, but the loss of old con- 
fidence, a sickness coming over the heart and brain of his 
love, that unnerved him. It was not the horrid cruelty to his 
friend, and his own, grievous loss thereby, but the recoil of his 


52 


SIR GIBBIE. 


loving endeavor tnat, jarring him out of every groove of 
thought, every socket of habit, every joint of action, cast him 
from the city, and made of him a wanderer indeed, not a 
wanderer in a strange country, but a wanderer in a strange 
world. 

To no traveller could one land well be so different from an- 
other, as to Gibbie the country was from the town. He had 
seen bushes and trees before, but only over garden walls, or 
in one or two of the churchyards. He had looked from the 
quay across to the bare shore on the other side, with its sandy 
hills, and its tall lighthouse on the top of the great rocks that 
bordered the sea ; but, so looking, he had beheld space as 
one looking from this world into the face of the moon, as a 
child looks upon vastness and possible dangers from his 
nurse’s arms where it cannot come near him ; for houses 
backed the quay all along ; the city was behind him, and 
spread forth her protecting arms. He had, once or twice, 
run out along the pier, which shot far into the immensity of 
the sea. like a causeway to another world — a stormy thread of 
granite, beaten upon both sides by the waves of the German 
Ocean ; but it was with the sea and not the country he then 
made the small acquaintance — and that not without terror. 
The sea was as different from the city as the air into which he 
had looked up at night — too different to compare against it 
and feel the contrast ; on neither could he set foot ; in neither 
could he be required to live and act — as now in this waste of 
enterable and pervious extent. 

Its own horror drove the vision away, and Gibbie saw the 
world again — saw, but did not love it. The sun seemed but 
to have looked up to mock him and go down again, for he 
had crossed the crack, and was behind a thick mass of cloud ; 
a cold damp wind, spotted with sparkles of rain, blew fitfully 
from the east ; the low bushes among which he sat, sent forth 
a chill sighing all about him, as they sifted the wind into 
sound ; the smell of the damp earth was strange to him — he 
did not know the freshness, the new birth of which it 
breathed ; below him the gloomy river, here deep, smooth, 
moody, sullen, there puckered with the grey ripples of a shal- 
low laughter under the cold breeze, went flowing heedless to 
the city. There only was — or had been, friendliness, com- 
fort, home ! This was emptiness — the abode of things, not 
beings. Yet never once did Gibbie think of returning to the 
city. He rose and wandered up the wide road along the river 
bank, farther and farther from it-*-his only guide the words of 
his father, Up Daurside his sole comfort the feeling of 


ADRIFT. .* 


53 


having once more to do with his father so long departed, 
some relation still with the paradise of his old world. Along 
cultivated fields and copses on the one side, and on the other 
a steep descent to the river, covered here and there with trees, 
but mostly with rough grass and bushes and stones, he fol- 
lowed the king’s highway. There were buttercups and plenty 
of daisies within his sight — primroses, too, on the slope be- 
neath ; but he did not know flowers, and his was not now the 
mood for discovering what they were. The exercise revived 
him, and he began to be hungry. But how could there be 
anything to eat in the desert, inhospitable succession of trees 
and fields and hedges, through which the road wound endlessly 
along, like a dead street, having neither houses nor paving 
stones ? Hunger, however, was far less enfeebling to Gibbie 
than to one accustomed to regular meals, and he was in no 
anxiety about either when or what he should eat. 

The morning advanced, and by-and-by he began to meet a 
fellow-creature now and then upon the road ; but at sight of 
everyone a feeling rose in him such as he had never had 
towards human being before : they seemed somehow of a 
different kind from those in the town, and they did not look 
friendly as they passed. He did not know that he presented 
to them a very different countenance from that which his fel- 
low-citizens had always seen him wear ; for the mingled and 
conflicting emotions of his spirit had sent out upon it an ex- 
pression which, accompanied by the misery of his garments, 
might well, to the superficial or inexperienced observer, con- 
vey the idea that he was a fugitive .and guilty. He was so 
uncomfortable at length from the way the people he met 
scrutinized him that, when he saw anyone coming, he would 
instantly turn aside and take the cover of thicket, or hedge, 
or stone wall, until the bearer of eyes had passed. His ac- 
customed trot, which he kept up for several hours, made him 
look the more suspicious ; but his feet, hardened from very 
infancy as they were, soon found the difference between the 
smooth flags and the sharp stones of the road, and before 
noon he was walking at quite a sober, although still active, 
pace. Doubtless it slackened the sooner that he knew no 
goal, no end to his wandering. Up Daurside was the one 
vague notion he had of his calling, his destiny, and with his short 
quick step, his progress was considerable ; he passed house 
after house, farm after farm ; but, never in the way of asking 
for anything, though as little in the way of refusing, he went 
nearer none of them than the road led him. Besides, the 
houses were very unlike those in the city, and not at all at' 


54 


SIR GIBBIE. 


tractive to him. He came at length to a field, sloping to the 
road, which was covered with leaves like some he had often 
seen in the market. They drew him ; and as there was but a 
low and imperfect hedge between, he got over, and found it 
was a crop of small yellow turnips. He gathered as many as 
he could carry, and ate them as he went along. Happily no 
agricultural person encountered him for some distance, 
though Gibbie knew no special cause to congratulate himself 
upon that, having not the slightest conscience of offence in 
what he did. His notions of property were all associated 
with well-known visible or neighboring owners, and in the 
city he would never have dreamed of touching anything that 
was not given him, except it lay plainly a lost thing. But 
here, where everything was so different, and he saw none of 
the signs of ownership to which he was accustomed, the idea 
of property did not come to him ; here everything looked 
lost, or on the same category with the chips and parings and 
crusts that were thrown out in the city, and became common 
property. Besides, the love which had hitherto rendered cov- 
etousness impossible, had here no object whose presence 
might have suggested a doubt, to supply in a measure the 
lack of knowledge ; hunger, instead, was busy in his world. 
I trust there were few farmers along the road who would have 
found fault with him for taking one or two ; but none, I sus- 
pect, would have liked to see him with all the turnips he 
could carry, eating them like a very rabbit : they were too 
near a city to look upon such a spectacle with indifference. 
Gibbie made no attempt to hide his spoil ; whatever could 
have given birth to the sense that caution would be necessary, 
would have prevented him from taking it. While yet busy 
he came upon a little girl feeding a cow by the roadside. 
She saw how he ate the turnips, and offered him a bit of oat- 
meal bannock. He received it gladly, and with beaming 
eyes offered her a turnip. She refused it with some indigna- 
tion. Gibbie disappointed, but not ungrateful, resumed his 
tramp, eating his bannock. He came soon after to a little 
stream that ran into the great river. For a few moments he 
eyed it very doubtfully, thinking it must, like the kennels 
along the sides of the street, be far too dirty to drink of ; but 
the way it sparkled and sang — most unscientific reasons — 
soon satisfied him, and he drank and was refreshed. He had 
still two turnips left, but, after the bannock, he did not seem 
to want them, and stowed them in the ends of the Sleeves of 
his jacket, folded back into great cuffs. 

All day the cold spring weather continued, with more of the 


ADRIFT. 


55 


past winter in it than of the coming summer. The sun would 
shine out for a few moments, with a grey, weary, old light, 
then retreat as if he had tried, but really could not. Once 
came a slight fall of snow, which, however, melted the mo- 
ment it touched the earth. The wind kept blowing cheerlessly 
by fits, and the world seemed growing tired of the same thing 
over again so often. At length the air began to grow dusk : 
then, first, fears of the darkness, to Gibbie utterly unknown 
before, and only born of the preceding night, began to make 
him aware of their existence in the human world. They 
seemed to rise up from his lonely heart ; they seemed to de- 
scend upon him out of the thickening air ; they seemed to 
catch at his breath, and gather behind him as he went. But, 
happily, before it was quite dark, and while yet he could dis- 
tinguish between objects, he came to the gate of a farmyard ; 
it waked in him the hope of finding some place where he could 
sleep warmer than in the road, and he clambered over it. 
Nearest of the buildings to the gate, stood an open shed, and 
he could see the shafts of carts projecting from it : perhaps in 
one of those carts, or under it, he might find a place that 
would serve him to sleep in : he did not yet know what facili- 
ties for repose the country affords. But just as he entered the 
shed, he spied at the farther corner of it, outside, a wooden 
structure, like a small house, and through the arched door of 
it saw the floor covered with nice-looking straw. He suspect- 
ed it to be a dog’s kennel ; and presently the chain lying be- 
side it, with a collar at the end, satisfied him it was. The dog 
was absent, and it looked altogether enticing ! He crept in, got 
under as much of the straw as he could heap over him, and 
fell fast asleep. 

In a few minutes, as it seemed to him, he was roused by 
the great voice of a dog in conversation with a boy : the boy 
seemed, by the sound of the chain, to be fastening the collar on 
the dog’s neck, and presently left him. The dog, which had 
been on the rampage the whole afternoon, immediately turn- 
ed to creep in and rest till supper time, presenting to Gibbie, 
who had drawn himself up at the back of the kennel, the in- 
telligent countenance of a large Newfoundland. Now Gibbie 
had been honored with the acquaintance of many dogs, and 
the friendship of most of them, for a lover of humanity can 
hardly fail to be a lover of caninity. Even among dogs, how- 
ever, there are ungracious individuals, and Gibbie had once 
or twice been bitten by quadrupedal worshippers of the re- 
spectable. Hence, with the sight of the owner of the dwell- 
ing, it dawned upon him that he must be startled to find a 


56 


SIR GIBBIE. 


Stranger in his house, and might, regarding him as an in- 
truder rather than a guest, worry him before he had time to 
explain himself. He darted forward therefore to get out, but 
had scarcely reached the door, when the dog put in his nose, 
ready to follow with all he was and had. Gibbie, thereupon, 
began a loud barking, as much as to say — “ Here I am : 
please do nothing without reflection.” The dog started back 
in extreme astonishment, his ears erect, and a keen look of 
question on his sagacious visage : what strange animal, speak- 
ing like, and yet so unlike, an orthodox dog, could have got 
into his very chamber ? Gibbie, amused at the dog’s fright, and 
assured by his looks that he was both a good-natured and 
reasonable animal, burst into a fit of merry laughter as loud 
as his previous barking, and a good deal more musical. The 
dog evidently liked it better, and took it as a challenge to 
play : after a series of sharp bursts of barking, his eyes flashing 
straight in at the door, and his ears lifted up like two plumes 
on the top of them, he darted into the kennel, and began pok- 
ing his nose into his visitor. Gibbie fell to patting and kissing 
and hugging him as if he had been a human — as who can tell 
but he was ? — glad of any companion that belonged to the 
region of the light ; and they were friends at once. Mankind 
had disappointed him, but here was a dog ! Gibbie was not 
the one to refuse mercies which yet he would not have been 
content to pay for. Both were tired, however, for both had 
been active that day, and a few minutes of mingled wrestling 
and endearment, to which, perhaps, the narrowness of their 
play-ground gave a speedier conclusion, contented both, after 
which they lay side by side in peace, Gibbie with his hand on 
the dog’s back, and the dog every now and then turning his 
head over his shoulder to lick Gibbie’s face. 

Again he was waked by approaching steps, and the same 
moment the dog darted from under him, and with much rattle 
out of the kennel, in front of wkich he stood and whined 
expectant. It was not quite dark, for the clouds had drifted 
away, and the stars were shining, so that, when he put out 
his head, he was able to see the dim form of a woman setting 
down something before the dog — into which he instantly 
plunged his nose, and began gobbling. The sound stirred 
up all the latent hunger in Gibbie, and he leaped out, eager 
to have a share. A large wooden bowl was on the ground, 
and the half of its contents of porridge and milk w'as already 
gone ; for the poor dog had not yet had experience enough to 
be perfect in hospitality, and had forgotten his guest’s 
wants in his own : it was plain that, if Gibbie was to have any. 


ADRIFT. 


57 


he must lose no time in considering the means. Had he had 
a long nose and mouth all in one like him, he would have 
plunged them in beside the dog’s ; but the flatness of his 
mouth causing the necessity, in the case of such an attempt, 
of bringing the whole of his face into contact with the food, 
there was not room in the dish for the two to feed together 
after the same fashion, so that he was driven to the sole other 
possible expedient, that of making a spoon of his hand. The 
dog neither growled nor pushed away the spoon, but instantly 
began to gobble twice as fast as before, and presently was lick- 
ing the bottom of the dish. Gibbie’s hand, therefore, made 
but few journeys to his mouth, but what it carried him was 
good food — better than any he had had that day. When all 
was gone he crept again into the kennel ; the dog followed, 
and soon they were both fast asleep in each other s arms and 
legs. 

Gibbie woke at sunrise and went out. His host came after 
him and stood wagging his tail and looking wistfully up in 
his face. Gibbie understood him, and, as the sole return he 
could make for his hospitality, undid his collar. Instantly he 
rushed off, his back going like a serpent, cleared the gate at a 
bound, and scouring madly across a field, vanished from his 
sight ; w'hereupon Gibbie too set out to continue his journey 
up Daurside. 

This day was warmer ; the spring had come a step nearer ; 
the dog had been a comforter to him, and the horror had 
begun to assuage ; he began to grow aware of the things 
about him, and to open his eyes to them. Once he saw’ a 
primrose in a little dell, and left the road to look at it. But 
as he w’ent, he set his foot in the w’ater of a chalybeate spring, 
wTich w’as trickling through the grass, and dyeing the ground 
red about it ; filled with horror he fled, and for some time 
dared never to go near a primrose. And still upon his right 
hand was the great river flowing down towards the home he 
had left ; now through low meadows, now through upshould- 
ered field of wheat and oats, now through rocky heights 
covered with the graceful silver-barked birch, the mountain 
ash, and the fir. Every time Gibbie, having lost sight of it 
by some turn of the road or some interposing eminence, 
caught its gleam afresh, his first feeling was that it was hurry- 
ing to the city, wTere the dead man lay, to tell w’here Gibbie 
was. Why he, who had from infancy done just as he pleased, 
should now have begun to dread interference wdth his liberty, 
he could not himself have told. Perhaps the fear w'as but 
the shadow of his new-born aversion to the place where he 


SIR GIBBIE. 


58 

had seen those best-loved countenances change so suddenly 
and terribly — cease to smile, but not cease to stare. 

That second day he fared better, too, than the first ; for he 
came on a family of mongrel gipsies, who fed him well out 
of their kettle, and, taken with his looks, thought to keep him 
for begging purposes. But now that Gibbie’s confidence in 
human nature had been so rudely shaken, he had already be- 
gun, with analysis unconscious, to read the human countenance 
questioning it ; and he thought he saw something that would 
hurt, in the eyes of two of the men and one of the women. 
Therefore in the middle of the night, he slipped silently out 
of the tent of rags, in which he had lain down with the gipsy 
children, and ere the mothers v^oke, was a mile up the river. 

But I must not attempt the detail of this part of his journey. 
It is enough that he got through it. He met with some 
adventures, and suffered a good deal from hunger and cold. 
Had he not been hardy as well as fearless he must have died. 
But now from this quarter, now from that, he got all that was 
needful for one of God’s birds. Once he found in a hedge 
the nest of an errant and secretive hen, and recognizing the 
eggs as food authorized by the shop windows and market of 
the city, soon qualified himself to have an opinion of their 
worth. Another time he came upon a girl milking a cow in 
a shed, and his astonishment at the marvels of the process was 
such, that he forgot even the hunger that was rendering him 
faint. He had often seen cows in the city, but had never sus- 
pected what they were capable of. When the girl caught 
sight of him, staring with open mouth, she was taken with 
such a fit of laughter, that the cow, which was ill-tempered, 
kicked out, and overturned the pail. Now because of her 
troublesomeness this cow was not milked beside the rest, and 
the shed where she stood was used for farm-implements only. 
The floor of it was the earth, beaten hard, and worn into 
hollows. When the milk settled in one of these, Gibbie saw 
that it was lost to the girl, and found to him ; undeterred by the 
astounding nature of the spring from which he had just seen it 
flow, he threw himself down, and drank like a calf. Her 
laughter ended the girl was troubled ; she would be scolded 
for her clumsiness in allowing Hawkie to kick over the pail, 
but the eagerness of the boy after the milk troubled her 
more. She told him to wait, and running to the house, re- 
turned with two large pieces of oat cake, which she gave him. 

Thus, one way and another, food came to Gibbie. Drink 
was to be had in almost any hollow. Sleep was scattered 
everywhere over the world. For warmth, only motion and a 


THE BARN. 


59 


seasoned skin were necessary : the latter Gibbie had ; the 
former, already a habit learned in the streets, had now become 
almost a passion. 


CHAPTER X. 

THE BARN. 

By this time Gibbie had got well up towards the roots of 
the hills of Gormgarnet, and the river had dwindled greatly. 
He was no longer afraid of it, but would lie for hours listen- 
ing to its murmurs over its pebbly bed, and sometimes even 
sleep in the hollows of its banks, or below the willows that 
overhung it. Every here and there, a brown rivulet from 
some peat-bog on a hill — brown and clear, like smoke- 
crystals molten together, flowed into it, and when he had lost 
it, guided him back to his guide. Farm after farm he passed, 
here one widely bordering a valley stream, there another 
stretching its skirts up the hillsides till they were lost in mere 
heather, where the sheep wandered about, cropping what 
stray grass-blades and other eatables they could find. Lower 
down he had passed through small towns and large villages ; 
here farms and cottages, with an occasional country-seat and 
little villages of low thatched houses, made up the abodes of 
men. By this time he had become greatly reconciled to the 
loneliness of Nature, and no more was afraid in her solitary 
presence. 

At the same time his heart had begun to ache and long 
after the communion of his kind. For not once since he set 
out — and that seemed months where it was only weeks, had 
he had an opportunity of doing anything for anybody — ex- 
cept, indeed, unfastening the dog’s collar ; and not to be able 
to help was to Gibbie like being dead. Everybody, down to 
the dogs, had been doing for him, and what was to become 
of him ? It was a state altogether of servitude into which he 
had fallen. 

May had now set in, but up here among the hills she was 
May by courtesy only : or if she was May, she would never 
be Might. She was, indeed, only April, with her showers 
and sunshine, her tearful, childish laughter, and again the 
frown, and the despair irremediable. Nay, as if she still kept 
up a secret correspondence with her cousin March, banished 
for his rudeness, she would not very seldom shake from her 
skirts a snow storm, and oftener the dancing hail. Then out 


6o 


SIR GIBBIE. 


would come the sun behind her, and laugh, and say — 
could not help that ; but here I am all the same, coming to 
you as fast as I can ! ” The green crops were growing darker, 
and the trees were all getting out their nets to catch carbon. 
The lambs were frolicking, and in sheltered places the flowers 
were turning the earth into a firmament. And now a mere 
daisy was enough to delight the heart of Gibbie. His joy in 
humanity so suddenly checked, and his thirst for it left un- 
slaked, he had begun to see the human look in the face of 
the commonest flowers, to love the trusting stare of the daisy, 
the gold-hearted boy, and the gentle despondency of the girl 
harebell, dreaming of her mother, the azure. The wind, of 
which he had scarce thought as he met it roaming the streets 
like himself, was now a friend of his solitude, bringing him 
sweet odors, alive with the souls of bees, and cooling with 
bliss the heat of the long walk. Even when it blew cold 
along the waste moss, waving the heads of the cotton-grass, 
the only live thing visible, it was a lover, and kissed him on 
the forehead. Not that Gibbie knew what a kiss was, any 
more than he knew about the souls of bees. He did not re- 
member ever having been kissed. In that granite city, the 
women were not much given to kissing children, even their 
own, but if they had been, who of them would have thought 
of kissing Gibbie ! The baker’s wife, kind as she always was 
to him, would have thought it defilement to press her lips to 
those of the beggar child. And how is any child to thrive 
without kisses ! The first caresses Gibbie ever knew as such, 
were given him by Mother Nature herself. It was only, how- 
ever, by degrees, though indeed rapid degrees, that he became 
capable of them. In the first part of his journey he was 
stunned, stupid, lost in change, distracted between a suddenly 
vanished past, and a future slow dawning in the present. He 
felt little beyond hunger, and that vague urging up Daurside, 
wdth occasional shoots of pleasure from kindness, mostly of 
woman and dog. He was less shy of the country people by 
this time, but he did not care to seek them. He thought 
them not nearly so friendly and good as the town-people, for- 
getting that these knew him and those did not. To Gibbie an 
introduction was the last thing necessary for any one wEo 
wore a face, and he could not understand why they looked at 
him so. 

Whatever is capable of aspiring, must be troubled that it 
may wake and aspire — then troubled still, that it may hold 
fast, be itself, and aspire still. 

One evening his path vanished between twilight and moon- 


THE BARN. 


6l 


rise, and just as it became dark he found himself at a rough 
gate, through which he saw a field. There was a pretty tall 
hedge on each side of the gate, and he was now a sufficiently 
experienced traveller to conclude that he was not far from 
some human abode. He climbed the gate, and found him- 
self in a field of clover. It was a splendid big bed, and even 
had the night not been warm, he would not have hesitated to 
sleep in it. He had never had a cold, and had as little fear 
for his health as for his life. He was hungry, it is true ; but 
although food was doubtless more delicious to such hunger 
as his — that of the whole body, than it can be to the mere 
palate and culinary imagination of an epicure, it was not so 
necessary to him that he could not go to sleep without it. So 
down he lay in the clover, and was at once unconscious. 

When he woke, the moon was high in the heavens, and had 
melted the veil of the darkness from the scene of still, well- 
ordered comfort. A short distance from his couch, stood a 
little army of ricks, between twenty and thirty of them, con- 
structed perfectly — smooth and upright and round and large, 
each with its conical top netted in with straw-rope, and finish- 
ed off with what the herd-boy called a toupicau ' — a neatly 
tied and trim tuft of the straw with which it was thatched, an- 
swering to the stone-ball on the top of a gable. Like tri- 
angles their summits stood out against the pale blue, moon- 
diluted air. They were treasure-caves, hollowed out of space, 
and stored with the best of ammunition against the armies of 
hunger and want ; but Gibbie, though he had seen many of 
them, did not know what they were. He had seen straw 
used for the bedding of cattle and horses, and supposed that 
the chief end of such ricks. Nor had he any clear idea that 
the cattle themselves were kept for any other object than to 
make them comfortable and happy. He had stood behind 
their houses in the dark, and heard them munching and 
grinding away even in the night. Probably the country was 
for the cattle, as the towns for the men ; and that would ex- 
plain why the country-people were so inferior. While he 
stood gazing, a wind arose behind the hills, and came blow- 
ing down some glen that opened northwards ; Gibbie felt it 
cold, and sought the shelter of the ricks. 

Great and solemn they looked as he drew nigh — near each 
other, yet enough apart for plenty of air to flow and eddy be- 
tween. Over a low wall of unmortared stones, he entered 
their ranks : above him, as he looked up from their broad 
base, they ascended huge as pyramids, and peopled the waste 
air with giant forms. How warm it was in the round-wind- 


62 


SIR GIBBIE. 


ing paths among the fruitful piles — tombs these, no ceno- 
taphs ! He wandered about them, now in a dusky yellow 
gloom, and nowin the cold blue moonlight, which they seemed 
to warm. At length he discovered that the huge things were 
flanked on one side by a long lo w house, in which there was a 
door, horizontally divided into two parts. Gibbie would fain 
have got in, to try whether the place was good for sleep ; but 
he found both halves fast. In the lower half, however, he 
spied a hole, which, though not so large, reminded him of the 
entrance to the kennel of his dog host ; but alas ! it had a 
door too, shut from the inside. There might be some way of 
opening it. He felt about, and soon discovered that it was a 
sliding valve, which he could push to either side. It was, in 
fact, the cat’s door, specially constructed for her convenience 
of entrance and exit. For the cat is the guardian of the barn; 
the grain which tempts the rats and mice is no temptation to 
her ; the rats and mice themselves are ; upon them she ex- 
ecutes justice, and remains herself an incorruptible, because 
untempted, therefore a respectable member of the farm com- 
munity — only the dairy door must be kept shut ; that has no 
cat-wicket in it. 

The hole was a small one, but tempting to the wee baronet; 
he might perhaps be able to squeeze himself through. He tried 
and succeeded, though with some little difficulty. The moon 
was there before him, shining through a pane or two of glass 
over the door, and by her light on the hard brown clay floor, 
Gibbie saw where he was, though if he had been told he was in 
the barn, he would neither have felt nor been at all the wiser. 
It was a very old-fashioned barn. About a third of it was 
floored with wood — dark with age — almost as brown as the 
clay — for threshing upon with flails. At that labor two men 
had been busy during the most of the preceding day, and 
that was how, in the same end of the barn, rose a great heap 
of oat-straw, showing in the light of the moon like a mound 
of pale gold. Had Gibbie had any education in the marvel- 
lous, he might now, in the midnight and moonlight, have well 
imagined himself in some treasure-house of the gnomes. What 
he saw in the other corner was still liker gold, and was in- 
deed greater than gold, for it was life — the heap, namely, of 
corn threshed from the straw : Gibbie recognized this as what 
he had seen given to horses. But now the temptation to 
sleep, with such facilities presented, was overpowering, and 
took from him all desire to examine further : he shot into 
the middle of the loose heap of straw, and vanished from the 
glimpses of the moon, burrowing like a mole. In the heart 


THE BARX. 


63 

of the golden warmth, he lay so dry and comfortable that, 
notwithstanding his hunger had waked with him, he was pres- 
ently in a faster sleep than before. And indeed what more 
luxurious bed, or w'hat bed conducive to softer slumber, was 
there in the world to find ! 

“The moving moon went down the sky, ” the cold wind 
softened and grew still ; the stars swelled out larger : the rats 
came, and then came puss, and the rats went with a scuffle 
and squatter ; the pagan grey came in like a sleep-walker, 
aud made the barn dreary as a dull dream ; then the horses 
began to fidget with their big feet, the cattle to Jow with their 
great trombone throats, and the cocks to crow as if to give 
warning for the last time against the devil, the world, and the 
flesh ; the men in the adjoining chamber woke, yawned, 
stretched themselves mightily, and rose ; the god-like sun 
rose after them, and, entering the barn with them, drove out 
the grey ; and through it all the orphan lay warm in God’s 
keeping and his nest of straw, like the butterfly of a huge 
chrysalis. 

When at length Gibbie became once more aware of existence, 
it was through a stormy invasion of the still realm of sleep ; 
the blows of two flails fell persistent and quick-following, 
first on the thick head of the sheaf of oats untied and cast 
down before them, then grew louder and more deafening as 
the oats flew and the chaff fluttered, and the straw flattened 
and broke and thinned and spread — until at last they thun- 
dered in great hard blows on the wooden floor. It was the 
first of these last blows that shook Gibbie awake. What they 
were or indicated he could not tell. He wormed himself 
softly round in the straw to look out and see. 

Now, whether it was that sleep was yet heavy upon him, and 
bewildered his eyes, or that his imagination had in dreams 
been busy with foregone horrors, I cannot tell ; but, as he 
peered through the meshes of the crossing and blinding straws, 
W'hat he seemed to see w^as the body of an old man with dis- 
hevelled hair, wTom, prostrate on the ground, they were 
beating to death with great sticks. His tongue clave to the 
roof of his mouth, not a sound could he utter, not a finger 
could he move ; he had no choice but to lie still, and witness 
the fierce enormity. But it is good that we are compelled 
to see some things, life among the rest, to what we call the 
end of them. By degrees Gibbie’s sight cleared ; the old man 
faded away ; and what was left of him he could see to be only 
an armful of straw. The next sheaf they threw dowm, he 
perceived, under their blows, the corn flying out of it, and 


64 


SIR GIBBIE. 


began to understand a little. When it was finished, the com 
that had flown dancing from its home, hke hail from its 
cloud, was swept aside to the common heap, and the straw 
tossed up on the mound that harbored Gibbie. It was well 
that the man with the pitchfork did not spy his eyes peeping 
out from the midst of the straw ; he might have taken him 
for some wild creature, and driven the prongs into him. As 
it was, Gibbie did not altogether like the look of him, and 
lay still as a stone. Then another sheaf was unbound and 
cast on the floor, and the blows of the flails began again. It 
went on thus for an hour and a half, and Gibbie, although he 
dropped asleep several times, was nearly stupid with the noise. 
The men at length, however, swept up the corn and tossed up 
the straw for the last time, and went out. Gibbie, judging 
by his own desires, thought they must have gone to eat, but 
did not follow them, having generally been ordered away the 
moment he was seen in a farmyard. He crept out, however, 
and began to look about him — first of all for something he 
could eat. The oats looked the most likely, and he took a 
mouthful for a trial. He ground at them severely, but, 
hungry as he was, he failed to find oats good for food. Their 
hard husks, their dryness, their instability, all slipping past 
each other at every attempt to crush them with his teeth, 
together foiled him utterly. He must search further. Look- 
ing round him afresh, he saw an open loft, and climbing on 
the heap in which he had slept, managed to reach it. It was 
at the height of the walls, and the couples of the roof rose 
immediately from it. At the farther end was a heap of hay, 
which he took for another kind of straw. Then he spied 
something he knew ; a row of cheeses lay on a shelf suspended 
from the rafters, ripening. Gibbie knew them well from the 
shop windows — knew they were cheeses and good to eat, 
though whence and how they came he did not know, his im- 
pression being that they grew in the fields like the turnips. 
He had still the notion uncorrected, that things in the country 
belonged to nobody in particular, and were mostly for the use 
ot animals, with which, since he became a wanderer, he had 
almost come to class himself. He was very hungry. He 
pounced upon a cheese and lifted it between his two hands ; 
it smelled good, but felt very hard. That was no matter ; 
what else were teeth made strong and sharp for? He tried 
them on one of the round edges, and, nibbling activelv, soon 
got through to the softer body of the cheese. But he had not 
got much further when he heard the men returning, and de- 
sisted, afraid of being discovered by the noise he made. The 


THE BARK. 


65 


readiest way to conceal himself was to lie down flat on the 
loft, and he did so just where he could see the threshing-floor 
over the edge of it by lifting his head. This, however, he 
scarcely ventured to do ; and all he could see as he lay was 
the tip of the swing-bar of one of the flails, ever as it reached 
the highest point of its ascent. But to watch for it very soon 
ceased to be interesting ; and although he had eaten so little 
of the cheese, it had yet been enough to make him dreadfully 
thirsty, therefore he greatly desired to get away. But he 
dared not go down : with their sticks those men might knock 
him over in a moment 1 So he lay there thinking of the poor 
little hedgehog he had seen on the road as he came ; how he 
stood watching it, and wishing he had a suit made all of 
great pins, which he could set up when he pleased ; and how 
the driver of a cart, catching sight of him at the foot of the 
hedge, gave him a blow with his whip, and, poor fellow ! 
notwithstanding his clothes of pins, that one blow of a whip 
was too much for him ! There seemed nothing in the world 
but killing. 

At length he could, unoccupied with something else, bear 
his thirst no longer, and, squirming round on the floor, crept 
softly towards the other end of the loft, to see what was to be 
seen there. 

He found that the heap of hay was not in the loft at all. 
It filled a small chamber in the stable, in fact ; and when 
Gibbie clambered upon it, what should he see below him on 
the other side, but a beautiful white horse, eating some of the 
same sort of stuff he was now lying upon ! Beyond he could 
see the backs of more horses, but they were very different — ■ 
big and clumsy, and not white. They were all eating, and 
this was their food on which he lay ! He wished he too 
could eat it — and tried, but found it even less satisfactory than 
the oats, for it nearly choked him. and set him coughing so that 
he was in considerable danger of betraying his presence to the 
men in the barn. How did the horses manage to get such 
dry stuff down their throats ? But the cheese was dry too, 
and he could eat that ! No doubt the cheese, as well as the 
fine straw, was there for the horses ! He would like to see 
the beautiful white creature down there eat a bit of it ; but 
with all his big teeth he did not think he could manage a 
whole cheese, and how t® get a piece broken off for him 
with those men there, he could not devise. It would want a 
long-handled harnmer like those with which he had seen 
men breaking stones on the road. 

A door opened beyond, and a man came in and led two of 


66 


SIR GIBBIE. 


the horses out, leaving the door open. Gibbie clambered 
down from the top of the hay into the stall beside the white 
horse, and ran out. He was almost in the fields, had not 
even a fence to cross. 

He cast a glance around, and went straight for a neighbor- 
ing hollow, where, taught by experience, he hoped to find 
water. 


•CHAPTER XL 

JANET. 

Once aw^ay, Gibbie had no thought of returning. Up 
Daurside was the sole propulsive force whose existence he 
recognized. But when he lifted his head from drinking at 
the stream, which was one of some size, and, greatly refreshed, 
looked up its channel, a longing seized him to know whence 
came the water of life which had thus restored him to 
bliss — how a burn first appears upon the earth. He thought 
it might come from the foot of a great conical mountain which 
seemed but a little way off. He would follow it up and see. 
So away he went, yielding at once, as was his wont, to the 
first desire that came. Pie had not trotted far along the bank, 
however, before, at a sharp turn it took, he saw that its course 
was a much longer one than he had imagined, for it turned 
from the mountain, and led up among the roots of other 
hills ; while here in front of him, direct from the mountain, 
as it seemed, came down a smaller stream, and tumbled 
noisily into this. The larger burn would lead him too far 
from the Daur ; he would follow the smaller one. Pie found 
a wide shallow place, crossed the larger, and went up the 
side of the smaller. 

Doubly free after his imprisonment of the morning, Gibbie 
sped joyously along. Already nature, her largeness, her 
openness, her loveliness, her changefulness, her oneness in 
change, had begun to heal the child’s heart, ajid comfort 
him in his disappointment with his kind. The stream he was 
now ascending ran along a claw of the mountain, which claw 
was covered with almost a forest of pine, protecting little col- 
onies of less hardy timber. Its heavy , green was varied with 
the pale delicate fringes of the fresh foliage of the larches, fill- 
ing the air with aromatic breath.- In the midst of their soft 
tufts, each tuft buttoned with a brown spot, hung the rich brown 


JANET. 


67 

knobs and tassels of last year's cones. But the trees were all 
on the opposite side of the stream, and appeared to be mostly 
on the other side of a wall. Where Gibbie was, the moun- 
tain-root was chiefly of rock, interspersed with heather. 

A little way up the stream, he came to a bridge over it, 
closed at the farther end by iron gates between pillars, each 
surmounted by a wolfs head in stone. Over the gate on each 
side leaned a rowan-tree, with trunk and branches aged and 
gnarled amidst their fresh foliage. He crossed the burn to 
look through the gate, and pressed his face between the bars 
to get a better sight of a tame rabbit that had got out of its 
hutch. It sat, like a Druid white with age, in the midst of a 
gravel drive, much overgrown with moss, that led through a 
young larch wood, with here and there an ancient tree, lone- 
ly amidst the youth of its companions. Suddenly from the 
wood a large spaniel came bounding upon the rabbit. Gibbie 
gave a shriek, and the rabbit made one white flash into the 
wood, with the dog after him. He turned away sad at heart. 

“Ilka cratur 'at can," he said to himself, “ates ilka cratur 
'at canna !'’ 

It was his first generalization, but not many years passed 
before he supplemented it with a conclusion : 

“ But the man 'at wad be a man, he mauna." 

Resuming his journey of investigation, he trotted along the 
bank of the burn, farther and farther up, until he could trot 
no more, but must go clambering over great stones, or sink- 
ing to the knees in bog, patches of it red with iron, from 
which he would turn away with a shudder. Sometimes he 
walked in the water, along the bed of the burn itself ; some- 
times he had to scramble up its steep sides, to pass one of 
the many little cataracts of its descent. Ilere and there a 
small silver birch, or a mountain-ash, or a stunted fir-tree, 
looking like a wizard child, hung over the stream. Its banks 
were mainly of rock and heather, but now and then a small 
patch of cultivation intervened. Gibbie had no thought that 
he was gradually leaving the abodes of men behind him ; he 
knew no reason why in ascending things should change, 
and be no longer as in plainer ways. For what he knew, 
there might be farm after farm, up and up for ever, to the 
gates of heaven. But it would no longer have troubled him 
greatly to leave all houses behind him for a season. A great 
purple foxglove could do much now — just at this phase of 
his story, to make him forget — not the human face divine, 
but the loss of it. A lark aloft in the blue, from whose heart, 
as from a fountain, whose roots were lost in the air, its nat- 


' SIR GIBBIE. 


6H ^ 

iiral source, issued, not a stream, but an ever 'spreading lake 
of song, was now more to him than the memory of any 
human voice he had ever heard, except his father’s and 
Sambo’s. But he was not yet quite out and away from the 
dwellings of his kind. 

I may as well now make the attempt to give some idea of 
Gibbie’s appearance, as he showed after so long wandering. 
Of dress he had hardly enough left to carry the name. Shoes, 
of course, he had none. Of the shape of trousers there re- 
mained nothing, except the division before and behind in the 
short petticoat to which they were reduced ; and those rudi- 
mentary divisions were lost in the multitude of rents of equal 
apparent significance. He had never, so far as he knew, had 
a shirt upon his body; and his sole other garment was a 
jacket, so much too large for him, that to retain the use of his 
hands, he had folded back the sleeves quite to his elbows. 
Thus reversed they became pockets, the only ones he had, and 
in them he stowed whatever provisions were given him of 
which he could not make immediate use — porridge and sowens 
and mashed potatoes included : they served him, in fact, like 
the first of the stomachs of those animals which have more 
than one — concerning which animals, by the way, I should 
much like to know what they were in “Pythagoras’ time.” His 
head had plentiful protection in his own natural crop — had 
never either had or required any other. That would have 
been of the gold order, had not a great part of its color been 
sunburnt, rained, and frozen out of it. All ways it pointed, 
as if surcharged with electric fluid, crowning him with a 
wildness which was in amusing contrast with the placidity of 
his countenance. Perhaps the resulting queerness in the 
expression of the little vagrant, a look as if he had been 
hunted till his body and soul were nearly ruffled asunder, 
and had already parted company in aim and interest, might 
have been the first thing to strike a careless observer. But 
if the heart was not a careless one, the eye would look again, 
and discover a stronger stillness than mere placidity — a 
sort of live peace abiding in that weather-beaten little face 
under its wild crown of human herbage. The features of it 
were well-shaped, and not smaller than proportioned to the 
small whole of his person. His eyes — partly, perhaps, be- 
cause there was so little flesh upon his bones — were large, 
and in repose had much of a soft animal expression : there 
was not in them the look of Fou and I know. Frequently, 
too, when occasion roused the needful instinct, they had a 
sharp expression of outlook and readiness, which without a 


JANET. 


69 

trace of fierceness or greed, was yet equally animal. Only 
all the time there was present something else, beyond charac- 
terization : behind them something seemed to lie asleep. 
His hands and feet were small and childishly dainty, his 
whole body well-shaped and well put together — of which the 
style of his dress rather quashed the evidence. 

Such was Gibbie to the eye, as he rose from Daurside to 
the last cultivated ground on the borders of the burn, and 
the highest dwelling on the mountain. It was the abode of 
a cottar, and was a dependency of the farm he had just left. 
The cottar was an old man of seventy; his wife was nearly sixty. 
They had reared stalwart sons and shapely daughters, now at 
service here and there in the valley below — all ready to see 
God in nature, and recognize Him in providence. They be- 
long to a class uow, I fear, extinct, but once, if my love pre- 
judice not my judgment too far, the glory and strength of 
Scotland : their little acres are now swallowed up in the 
larger farms. 

It was a very humble dwelling, built of turf upon a founda- 
■^tidn of stones, and roofed with turf and straw — warm, and 
nearly impervious to the searching airs of the mountain-side. 
One little window of a foot and a half square looked out on 
the universe. At one end stood a stack of peat, half as big 
as the cottage itself. All around it were huge rocks, some of 
them peaks whose masses went down to the very central fires, 
others only fragments that had rolled from above. Here and 
there a thin crop was growing in patches among them, the 
red-grey stone lifting its baldness in spots numberless through 
the soft waving green. A few of the commonest flowers grew 
about the door, but there was no garden. The door-step was 
live rock, and a huge projecting rock behind formed the back 
and a portion of one of the end walls. This latter rock had 
been the attraction to the site, because of a hollow in it, which 
now served as a dairy. For up there with them lived the last 
cow of the valley — the cow that breathed the loftiest air on all 
Daurside — a good cow, and gifted in feeding well upon little. 
Facing the broad south, and leaning against the hill, as 
against the bosom of God, sheltering it from the north and 
east, the cottage looked so high-humble, so still, so confident, 
that it drew Gibbie with the spell of heart-likeness. He 
knocked at the old, weather-beaten, shrunk and rent, but well 
patched door. A voice, alive with the soft vibrations of 
thought and feeling, answered, 

‘‘Come yer wa’s in, whae’er ye be.” 


70 


SIR GIBBIE. 


Gibbie pulled the string that came through a hole in the 
door, so lifting the latch, and entered. 

^ woman sat on the creepie, her face turned over her shoul- 
der to see who came. It was a grey face, with good simple 
features and clear grey eyes. The plentiful hair that grew 
low on her forehead, was half grey, mostly covered by a white 
cap with frills. A clean wrapper and apron, both of blue 
print, over a blue winsey petticoat, blue stockings, and strong 
shoes completed her dress. A book lay on her lap : always 
when she had finished her morning’s work, and made her 
house tidy, she sat down to have her comfort, as she called 
it. The moment she saw Gibbie she rose. Had he been the 
angel Gabriel, come to tell her she was wanted at the throne, 
her attention could not have been more immediate or thor- 
ough. She was rather a little woman, and carried herself 
straight and light. 

“Eh, ye puir ootcast 1 ” she said, in the pitying voice of a 
mother, ‘ ‘ h'oo cam ye here sic a hicht ? Cratur, ye hae left 
the war!’ ahin’ ye. What wad ye hae here ? I hae naething. ” 

Receiving no answer but one of the child’s bewitching 
smiles, she stood for a moment regarding him, not in mere 
silence, but with a look of dumbness^> She was a mother. 
One who is mother only to her own children is not a mother ; 
she is only a woman who has borne children. But here was 
one of God’s mothers. ''T,, 

Loneliness and silence, and constant homely familiarity 
with the vast simplicities of nature, assist much in the devel- 
opment of the deeper and more wonderful faculties of percep- 
tion. The perceptions themselves may take this or that shape 
according to the education — may even embody themselves 
fantastically, yet be no less perceptions. Now the very mo- 
ment before Gibbie entered, she had been reading the words 
of the Lord : “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me”; and 
with her heart full of them, she lifted her eyes and saw Gibbie. 
For one moment, with the quick flashing response of the 
childlike imagination of the Celt, she fancied she saw the 
Lord himself. Another woman might have made a more 
serious mistake, and seen there 07ily a child. Often had Janet 
pondered, as she sat alone on the great mountain, while 
Robert was with the sheep, or she lay awake by. his side at 
night, with the wind howling about the cottage, whether the 
Lord might not sometimes take a lonely walk to look after 
such solitary sheep of his flock as they, and let them know he 
had not lost sight of them, for all the ups and downs of the 
hills. There stood the child, and whether he was the Lord 


JANET. 


71 


or not, he was evidently hungry. Ah ! who could tell but 
the Lord was actually hungry in every one of his hungering 
little ones ? 

In the meantime — only it was but thought-time, not clock- 
time — Gibbie stood motionless in the middle of the floor, 
smiling his innocent smile, asking for nothing, hinting at 
nothing, but resting his wild calm eyes, with a sense of safety 
and mother-presence, upon the grey thoughtful face of the 
gazing woman. Her awe deepened ; it seemed to descend 
upon her and fold her in as with a mantle. Involuntarily she 
bowed her head, and stepping to him took him by the hand, 
and led him to the stool she had left. There she made him 
sit, while she brought forward her table, white with scrub- 
bing, took from a hole in the wall and set upon it a platter 
of oatcakes, carried a wooden bowl to her dairy in the rock 
through a whitewashed door, and bringing it back filled, half 
with cream half with milk, set that also on the table. Then 
she placed a chair before it, and said — 

“ Sit ye doon, an’ tak. Gin ye war the Lord nimsel’, my 
bonny man, an’ ye may be for oucht I ken, for ye luik puir 
an’ despised eneuch, I cud gie nae better, for it’s a’ I hae to 
offer ye — ’cep it micht be an egg,” she added, correcting her- 
self, and turned and went out. 

Presently she came back with a look of success, carrying 
two eggs, which, having raked out a quantity, she buried in 
the hot ashes of the peats, and left in front of the hearth to 
roast, while Gibbie went on eating the thick oatcake, sweet 
and substantial, and drinking such milk as the wildest imagi- 
nation of town-boy could never suggest. It was indeed 
angels’ food — food such as would have pleased the Lord him- 
self after a hard day with axe and saw^and plane, so good and 
simple and strong was it. Janet resumed her seat on the low 
three-legged stool, and took her knitting that he might feel 
neither that he was watched as he ate, nor that she was wait- 
ing for him to finish. Every other moment she gave a glance 
at the stranger she had taken in ; but never a word he spoke, 
and the sense of mystery grew upon her. 

Presently came a great bounce and scramble ; the latch 
jumped up, the door flew open, and after a moment’s pause, 
in came a sheep dog — a splendid thoroughbred collie, carry- 
ing in his mouth a tiny, long-legged lamb, which he dropped 
half dead in the woman’s lap. It was a late lamb, born of a 
mother which had been sold from the hill, but had found her 
way back from a distance, in order that her coming young 
one might have the privilege of being yeaned on the same 


72 


SIR GIBBIE. 


spot where she had herself awaked to existence. Another 
moment, and her mba-a was heard approaching the door. 
She trotted in, and going up to Janet, stood contemplating 
the consequences of her maternal ambition. Her udder was 
full, but the lamb was too weak to suck. Janet rose, and 
going to the side of the room, opened the door of what have 
seemed an old press, but was a bed. Folding back the coun- 
terpane, she laid the lamb in the bed, and covered it over. 
Then she got a caup, a wooden dish like a large saucer, and 
into it milked the ewe. Next she carried the caup to the bed ; 
but what means she there used to enable the lamb to drink, 
the boy could not see, though his busy eyes and loving heart 
would gladly have taken in all. 

In the mean time the collie, having done his duty by the 
lamb, and perhaps forgotten it, sat on his tail, and stared with 
his two brave trusting eyes at the little beggar that sat in the 
master’s chair, and ate of the fat of the land. Oscar was a 
gentleman, and had never gone to school, therefore neither 
fancied nor had been taught that rags make an essential dis- 
tinction, and ought to be barked at. Gibbie was a stranger, 
and therefore as a stranger Oscar gave him welcome — now 
and then stooping to lick the little brown feet that had wan- 
dered so far. 

Like all wdld creatures, Gibbie ate fast, and had finished 
everything set before him ere the woman had done feeding the 
lamb. Without a notion of the rudeness of it, his heart full 
of gentle gratitude, he rose and left the cottage. When Janet 
turned from her shepherding, there sat Oscar looking up at 
the empty chair. 

“What’s come o’ the laddie ? ” she said to the dog, who an- 
swered with a low whine, half-regretful, half-interrogative. It 
may be he was only asking, like Esau, if there was no resid- 
uum of blessing for him also ; but perhaps he too was puz- 
zled what to conclude about the boy. Janet hastened to the 
door, but already Gibbie’s nimble feet, refreshed to the point 
of every toe with the food he had just swallowed, had borne 
him far up the hill, behind the cottage, so that she could not 
get a glimpse of him. Thoughtfully she returned, and thought- 
fully removed the remnants of the meal. She would then 
have resumed her Bible, but her hospitality had rendered it 
necessary that she should put on her girdle — not a cincture 
of leather upon her body, but a disc of iron on the fire, to 
bake thereon cakes ere her husband’s return. It was a simple 
enough process, for the oat-meal wanted nothing but water 
and fire ; but her joints had not yet got rid of the winter’s 


JANET. 


73 


rheumatism, and the labor of the baking was the hardest part 
of the sacrifice of her hospitality. To many it is easy to give 
what they have, but the offering of weariness and pain is 
never easy. They are indeed a true salt to salt sacrifices 
withal. That it was the last of her meal till her youngest boy 
should bring her a bag on his back from the mill the next 
Saturday, made no point in her trouble. 

When at last she had done, and put the things away, and 
swept up the hearth, she milked the ewe, sent her out to nib- 
ble, took her Bible, and sat down once more to read. The 
lamb lay at her feet, with his little head projecting from the 
folds of her new flannel petticoat ; and every time her eye fell 
from the book upon the lamb, she felt as if somehow the lamb 
was the boy that had eaten of her bread and drunk of her 
milk. After she had read a while, there came a change, and 
the lamb seemed the Lord himself, both lamb and shepherd, 
who had come to claim her hospitality. Then, divinely in- 
vaded with the dread lest in the fancy she kneeled down and 
prayed to the friend of Martha and Mary and Lazarus, to 
come as he had said, and sup with her indeed. 

Not for years and years had Janet been to church ; she had 
long been unable to walk so far ; and having no book but the 
best, and no help to understnnd it, but the highest, her faith 
was simple, strong, real, all-pervading. Day by day she 
pored over the great gospel — I mean just the good news ac- 
cording to Matthew and Mark and Luke and John — until she 
had grown to be one of the noble ladies of the kingdom of 
heaven — one of those who inherit the earth, and are ripening 
to see God. For the Master, and his mind in hers, was her 
teacher. She had little or no theology save what he taught 
her, or rather what he is. And of any other than that, the less 
the better ; for no theology, except the B^ov \6yo<5^ is worth 
the learning, no other being true. To know him is to know 
God. And he only who obeys him does or can know him ; 
he who obeys him, cannot fail to know him. To Janet Jesus 
Christ was no object of so-called theological speculation, but 
a living man who somehow or other heard her when she 
called to him, and sent her the help she needed. 


74 


SIR GIBBIE. 


CHAPTER XTL 

GLASHGAK, 

Up axd up the hill \rent Gibbie. The path ceased alto- 
gether ; but when up is the word in one's mind — and up had 
grown almost a fixed idea with Gibbie — ^he can seldom be in 
doubt whether he is goingright, even where there is no track. 
Indeed in all more arduous wavs, men leave no track behind 
them, no finger-p>ost — there is ^wavs but the steepness. He 
climbed and dimbed. The mountain grew steeper and barer as 
he went, and he became absorbed in his climbing. All at once he 
discovered that he had lost the stream, where or wh^ he could 
not telL All below and around him was red granite rock, 
scattered over with the chips and splinters detached bv air and 
wind, water and stream, hght and heat and cold. Giashgar 
was only about three thousand feet in height but it was the 
steepest of its group — a huge rock that, even in the midst of 
masses, suggested solidity. 

Not once while he ascended had the idea come to him that 
by and by he should be able to climb no farther. For aught 
he knew there were oat cakes and milk and sheep and collie 
dogs even higher and higher stilL Not until he actually 
stood upon the peak did he know that there was the earthly 
hiiherio — ^the final obstacle of unobstancv, the even*where 
which, from excess of perviousness, was to human foot imper- 
vious. The sun was about two hours towards the west, when 
Gibbie, his little legs almost as active as ever, surmounted the 
final slope. Running up like a child that would scale heaven, 
he stood on the bare round, the head of the mountain, and saw, 
with an invading shock of amazement, and at first of disap- 
]X)intment, that there was no going higher ; in everv direction 
the slope was downward. He had never been on the top of 
anything before. He had always been in the hollows of things 
Now the w hole world lay beneath him. It was cold ; in some 
of the shadows lay snow — ^weary exile from both the sky and 
the sea, and the ways of them — captive in the fetters of the 
cold — ^prisoner to the mountain top ; but Gibbie felt no cold. 
In a glow" with the climb, which at the last bad been hard, 
his lungs filled with the heavenly air, and his soul wdth the 


GLASHGAR. 


75 


feeling that he was above everything* that was uplifted on the 
very crown of the earth, he stood in his rags, a fluttering scare- 
crow, the conqueror of height, the discoverer of immensity, 
the monarch of space. Nobody knew of such marvel but 
him 1 Gibbie had never even heard the word poetry, but none 
the less was he the very stuff out of which poems grow, and 
now all the latent poetry in him was set a swaying and heav- 
ing — an ocean inarticulate because unobstructed — a might 
that could make no music, no thunder of waves, because it 
had no shore, no rocks of thought against which to break in 
speech. He sat down on the topmost point ; and slowly in 
the silence and the loneliness, from the unknown fountains of 
the eternal consciousness, the heart of the child filled. Above 
him towered infinitude, immensity, potent on his mind 
through shape to his eye in a soaring dome of blue — the one 
visible symbol informed and insouled of the eternal, to reveal 
itself thereby. In it, centre and life, lorded the great sun, 
beginning to east shado'ws to the south and east from the end- 
less heaps of the world, that lifted themselves in all directions. 
Down their sides ran the streams, down busily, hasting away 
through every valley to the Daur, which bore them back to the 
ocean-heart — through woods and meadows, park and waste, 
rocks and willowy marsh. Behind the valleys rose moun- 
tains ; and behind the mountains, other mountains, more and 
more, each swathed in its own mystery ; and beyond all hung 
the curtain-depth of the sky-gulf. Gibbie sat and gazed, and 
dreamed and gazed. The mighty city that had been to him 
the universe, was dropped and lost, like a thing that was now 
nobody’s, in far indistinguishable distance ; and he who had 
lost it, had climbed upon the throne of the world. The air was 
still when a breath awoke, it but touched his cheek like the 
down of a feather, and the stillness was there again. The still- 
ness grew great, and slowly descended upon him. It deepened 
and deepened. Surely it would deepen to a voice ! — it M^as 
about to speak ! It was as if a great single thought was the 
substance of the silence, and was all over and around him, 
and closer to him than his clothes, than his body, than his 
hands. I am describing the indescribable, and compelled to 
make it too definite for belief. In colder speech, an experi- 
ence had come to the child ; a link in the chain of his develop- 
ment glided over the windlass of his uplifting ; a change 
passed upon him. In after years when Gibbie had the idea 
of God, when he had learned to think about him, to desire 
his presence, to believe that a will of love enveloped his will, 
as the brooding^hen spreads her wings over her eggs — as often 


SIR GIBBIE. 


76 

as the thought of God came to him, it came in the shape of 
the silence on the top of Glashgar. 

As he sat, with his eyes on the peak he had just chosen 
from the rest as the loftiest of all within his sight, he saw a 
cloud begin to grow upon him. The cloud grew, and gath- 
ered, and descended, covering its sides as it went, until the 
whole was hidden. Then swiftly, as he gazed, the cloud 
opened as it were a round window in the heart of it, and 
through that he saw the peak again. The next moment a 
flash of blue lightning darted across the opening, and 
whether Gibbie really saw what follows, he never could be 
sure, but always after, as often as the vision returned, in the 
flash he saw a rock rolling down the peak. The clouds swept 
together, and the window closed. The next thing which in 
after years he remembered was, that the earth, mountains, 
meadows, and streams, had vanished ; everything was gone 
from his sight, except a few yards around him of the rock 
upon which he sat, and the cloud that hid world and heaven. 
Then again burst forth the lightning. He saw no flash, but 
an intense cloud-illumination, accompanied by the deafening 
crack, and followed by the appalling roar and roll of the 
thunder. Nor was it noise alone that surrounded him, for, 
as if he were in the heart and nest of the storm, the very 
wind-waves that made the thunder rushed in driven bellowing 
over him and had nearly swept him away. He clung to the 
rock with hands and feet. The cloud writhed and wrought 
and billowed and eddied, with all the shapes of the wind, 
and seemed itself to be the furnace-womb in which the 
thunder was created. Was this then the voice into which the 
silence had been all the time deepening ? had the Presence 
thus taken form and declared itself? Gibbie had yet to 
learn that there is a deeper voice still into which such a silence 
may grow — and the silence not be broken. He was not dis- 
mayed. He had no conscience of wrong, and scarcely knew 
fear. It was an awful delight that filled his spirit. Mount 
Sinai was not to him a terror. To him there was no wrath 
in the thunder any more than in the greeting of the dog that 
found him in his kennel. To him there was no being in the 
sky so righteous as to be more displeased than pitiful over 
the wrongness of the children whom he had not yet got taught 
their childhood. Gibbie sat calm, awe-ful, but, I imagine, 
with a clear forehead and smile-haunted mouth, while the 
storm roared and beat and flashed and ran about him. It 
was the very fountain of tempest. From the bare crest of the 
mountain the water poured down its sides, as if its springs 


GLASHGAR. 


77 


were in the rock itself, and not in the bosom of the cloud 
above. The tumult at last seized Gibbie like an intoxica- 
tion ; he jumped to his feet, and danced and flung his arms 
about, as if he himself were the storm. But the uproar did 
not last long. Almost suddenly it was gone, as if, like a bird 
that had been flapping the ground in agony, it had at last re- 
covered itself, and taken to its great wings and flown. The 
sun shone out clear, and in all the blue abyss not a cloud was 
to be seen except far away to leeward, where one was spread 
like a banner in the lonely air, fleeting away, the ensign of 
the charging storm — bearing for its device a segment of the 
many-colored bow. 

And now that its fierceness was over, the jubilation in the 
softer voices of the storm became audible. As the soul gives 
thanks for the sufferings that are overpast, offering the love 
and faith and hope which the pain has stung into fresh life, 
so from the sides of the mountain ascended the noise of the 
waters the cloud had left behind. The sun had kept on his 
journey ; the storm had been no disaster to him ; and now 
he was a long way down the west, and Twilight, in her grey 
cloak, would soon be tracking him from the east, like sorrow 
dogging delight. Gibbie, wet and cold, began to think of 
the cottage where he had been so kindly received, of the 
friendly face of its mistress, and her care of the lamb. It was 
not that he wanted to eat. He did not even imagine more eating, 
for never in his life had he eaten twice of the same charity in 
the same day. What he wanted was to find some dry hole in 
the mountain, and sleep as near the cottage as he could. So he 
rose and set out. But he lost his way ; came upon one prec- 
ipice after another, down which only a creeping thing could 
have gone ; was repeatedly turned aside by torrents and 
swampy places ; and when the twilight came, was still wan- 
dering upon the mountain. At length, he found, as he 
thought, the burn along whose bank he had ascended in the 
morning, and followed it towards the valley, looking out for 
the friendly cottage. But the first indication of abode he saw 
was the wall of the grounds of the house through whose gate 
he had looked in the morning. He was then a long way from 
the cottage, and not far from the farm ; and the best thing he 
could do was to find again the barn where he had slept so well 
the night before. This was not very difficult even in the dusky 
night. He skirted the wall, came to his first guide, found and 
crossed the valley-stream, and descended it until he thought 
he recognized the slope of clover down which he had run in 
the morning. He ran up the brae, and there were the solemn 


78 


SIR GIBBIE. 


cones of the corn-ricks between him and the sky ! A minute 
more and he had crept through the cat-hole, and was feeling 
about in the dark barn. Happily the heap of straw was not 
yet removed. Gibbie shot into it like a mole, and burrowed 
to the very centre, there coiled himself up, and imagined him- 
self lying in the heart of the rock on which he sat during the 
storm, and listening to the thunder winds over his head. 
The fancy enticed the sleep which before was ready enough 
to come, and he was soon far stiller than Ariel in the cloven 
pine of Sycorax. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

THE CEILING. 

He might have slept longer the next morning, for there 
was no threshing to wake him, in spite of the cocks in the 
yard that made it their business to rouse sleepers to their 
work, had it not been for another kind of cock inside him, 
which oore the same relation to food that the others bore to 
light. He peeped first, then crept out. All was still except 
tlie voices of those same prophet cocks, crying in the wilder- 
ness of the yet sunless world ; a moo now and then from the 
byres ; and the occasional stamp of a great hoof in the stable. 
Gibbie clambered up into the loft, and turning the cheeses 
about until he came upon the one he had gnawed before, 
again attacked it, and enlarged considerably the hole he had 
already made in it. Rather dangerous food it was, perhaps, 
eaten in that unmitigated way, for it was made of skimmed 
milk, and was very dry and hard ; but Gibbie was a powerful 
little animal, all bones and sinews, small hard muscle, and 
faultless digestion. The next idea naturally rising was the 
burn ; he tumbled down over the straw heap to the floor of 
the barn, and made for the cat-hole. But the moment he 
put his head out, he saw the legs of a man : the farmer was 
walking through his ricks, speculating on the money they 
held. He drew back, and looking round to see where best 
he could betake himself should he come in. He spied there- 
upon a ladder leaning against the end-wall of the barn, oppo- 
site the loft and the stables, and near it in the wall a wooden 
shutter, like the door of a little cupboard. He got up the 
ladder, and opening the shutter, which was fastened only with 
a button, found a hole in the wall, through which popping 
his head too carelessly, he knocked from a shelf some piece 


THE CEILING. 


79 


of pottery, which fell with a great crash on a paved floor. 
Looking after it, Gibbie beheld below him a rich prospect of 
yellow-white pools ranged in order on shelves. They re- 
minded him of milk, but were of a different color. As he 
gazed, a door opened hastily, with sharp clicking latch, and 
a woman entered, ejaculating, “Care what set that cat!” 
Gibbie drew back, lest in her search for the cat she might find 
the culprit. She looked all round, muttering such truncated 
imprecations as befitted the mouth of a Scotchwoman ; but 
as none of her milk was touched, her wrath gradually abated : 
she picked up the fragments and withdrew. 

Thereupon Gibbie ventured to reconnoitre a little farther, 
and popping in his head again, saw that the dairy was open 
to the roof, but the door was in a partition which did not run 
so high. The place from which the woman entered, was 
ceiled, and the ceiling rested on the partition between it and 
the dairy ; so that, from a shelf level with the hole, he could 
easily enough get on the top of the ceiling. This, urged by 
the instinct of the homeless to understand their surroundings, 
he presently effected, by creeping like a cat along the top 
shelf. 

The ceiling was that of the kitchen, and was merely of 
boards, which, being old and shrunken, had here and there 
a considerable crack between two, and Gibbie, peeping 
through one after another of these cracks, soon saw several 
things he did not understand. Of such was a barrel-churn, 
which he took for a barrel-organ, and welcomed as a sign of 
civilization. The woman was sweeping the room towards 
the hearth, where the peat fire was already burning, with a 
great pot hanging over it, covered with a wooden lid. When 
the water in it was hot, she poured it into a large wooden 
dish, in which she began to wash other dishes, thus giving the 
observant Gibbie his first notion of housekeeping. Then she 
scoured the deal table, dusted the bench and the chairs, 
arranged the dishes on shelves and rack, except a few which 
she placed on the table, put more water on the fire, and dis- 
appeared in the dairy. Thence presently she returned, carry- 
ing a great jar, which, to Gibbie’s astonishment, having lifted 
a lid in the top of the churn, she emptied into it ; he was not, 
therefore, any farther astonished, when she began to turn the 
handle vigorously, that no music issued. As to what else 
might be expected, Gibbie had not even a mistaken idea. 
But the butter came quickly that morning, and then he did 
have another astonishment, for he saw a great mass of some- 
thing half-solid tumbled out where he had seen a liquid 


8o 


SIR GIBBIE. 


poured in — nor that alone, for the liquid came out again 
too I But when at length he saw the mass, after being well 
washed, moulded into certain shapes, he recognized it as 
butter, such as he had seen in the shops, and had now and 
then tasted on the piece given him by some more than usually 
generous housekeeper. Surely he had wandered into a re- 
gion of plenty ! Only now, when he saw the woman busy 
and careful, the idea of things in the country being a sort of 
common property began to fade from his mind, and the per- 
ception to wake that they were as the things in the shops, 
which must not be touched without first paying money for 
them over a counter. 

The butter-making brought to a successful close, the wo- 
man proceeded to make porridge for the men’s breakfast, and 
with hungry eyes Gibbie w^atched that process next. The wa- 
ter in the great pot boiling like a wild volcano, she took 
handful after handful of meal from a great wooden dish, 
called a bossie, and threw it into the pot, stirring as she 
threw, until the mess was presently so thick that she could no 
more move the spurtle in it ; and scarcely had she emptied it 
into another great wooden bowl, called a bicker when Gib- 
bie heard the heavy tramp of the men crossing the yard to 
consume it. 

For the last few minutes, Gibbie’s nostrils — alas ! not Gib- 
bie — had been regaled with the delicious odor of the boiling 
meal ; and now his eyes had their turn — but still, alas, not 
Gibbie ! Prostrate on the ceiling he lay and watched the 
splendid spoonfuls tumble out of sight into the capacious 
throats of four men ; all took their spoonfuls from the same 
dish, but each dipped his spoonful into his private caup of 
milk, ere he carried it to his mouth. A little apart sat a boy, 
whom the woman seemed to favor, having provided him with 
a plate full of porridge by himself, but the fact was, four were 
as many as could bicker comfortably, or with any chance of 
fair play. The boy’s countenance greatly attracted Gibbie. 
It was a long, solemn face, but the eyes were bright-blue and 
sparkling ; and when he smiled, which was not very often, it 
was a good and meaningful smile. 

When the meal was over, and he saw the little that was left 
with all the drops of milk from the caups tumbled into a 
common receptacle, to be kept, he thought, for the next meal, 
poor Gibbie felt very empty and forsaken. He crawled away 
sad at heart, with nothing before him except a drink of water 
at the burn. He might have gone to the door of the house, 
in the hope of a bit of cake, but now that he had seen some- 
thing of the doings in the house and of the people who lived in 


HORNIE. 


8l> 

it — as soon, that is, as he had looked embodied ownership in 
the face — he began to be aware of its claims, and the cheese 
he had eaten to lie heavy upon his spiritual stomach ; he had 
done that which he would not have done before leaving the 
city. Carefully he crept across the ceiling, his head hanging, 
like a dog scolded of his master, carefully along the shelf of 
the dairy, and through the opening in the wall, quickly down 
the ladder, and through the cat-hole in the barn door. There 
was no one in the corn-yard now, and he wandered about 
among the ricks looking, with little hope, for something to 
eat. Turning a corner he came upon a henhouse — and there 
was a crowd of hens and half-grown chickens about the very 
dish into which he had seen the remnants of the breakfast 
thrown, all pecking billfuls out of it. As I may have said be- 
fore, he always felt at liberty to share with the animals, partly, 

I suppose, because he saw they had no scrupulosity or cere- 
mony among themselves ; so he dipped his hand into the 
dish : why should not the bird of the air now and then peck 
with the more respectable of the barn-door, if only to learn 
his inferiority ? Greatly refreshed, he got up from among the 
hens, scrambled over the dry stone-wall, and trotted away to 
the burn. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

HORNIE. 

It was now time he should resume his journey up Daur- 
side, and he set out to follow the burn that he might regain 
the river. It led him into a fine meadow, where a number 
of cattle were feeding. The meadow was not fenced — little 
more than marked off, indeed, upon one side, from a field of 
growing corn, by a low wall of earth, covered with moss and 
grass and flowers. The cattle were therefore herded by a boy 
whom Gibbie recognized even in the distance as him by whose 
countenance he had been so much attracted m hen, like an old 
deity on a cloud, he lay spying through the crack in the ceil- 
ing. The boy was reading a book, from which every now 
and then he lifted his eyes to glance around him, and see 
whether any of the cows or heifers or stirks were wandering 
beyond their pasture of rye-grass and clover. Having them 
all before him, therefore no occasion to look behind, he did 
not see Gibbie approaching. But as soon as he seemed 
thoroughly occupied, a certain black cow, with short sharp 


SIR GIBBIE. 


82' 

horns and a wicked look, which had been graduall}^ as was 
her wont, edging nearer and nearer to the corn, turned sud- 
denly and ran for it, jumped the dyke, and plunging into a 
mad revelry of greed, tore and devoured with all the haste 
not merely of one insecure, but of one that knew she was 
stealing. Now Gibbie had been observant enough during his 
travels to learn that this was against the law and custom of 
the country — that it was not permitted to a cow to go into a 
field where there were no others — and like a shot he was after 
the black marauder. The same instant the herd-boy too, 
lifting his eyes from his book, saw her, and springing to his 
feet, caught up his great stick, and ran also : he had more 
than one reason to run, for he understood only too well the 
dangerous temper of the cow, and saw that Gibbie was a mere 
child, and unarmed — an object most provocative of attack to 
Hornie — so named, indeed, because of her readiness to use 
the weapons with which Nature had provided her. She was, 
in fact, a malicious cow, and but that she was a splendid 
milker, would have been long ago fatted up and sent to the 
butcher. The boy as he ran full speed to the rescue, kept 
shouting to warn Gibbie from his purpose, but Gibbie was too 
intent to understand the sounds he uttered, and supposed 
them addressed to the cow. With the fearless service that 
belonged to his very being, he ran straight at Hornie, and, 
having nothing to strike her with, flung himself against her 
with a great shove towards the dyke. Hornie, absorbed in 
her delicious robbery, neither heard nor saw before she felt 
him, and startled by the sudden attack, turned tail. It was 
but for a moment. In turning she caught sight of her ruler, 
sceptre in hand, at some little distance, and turned again, 
either to have another mouthful, or in the mere instinct to 
escape him. Then she caught sight of the insignificant object 
that had scared her, and in contemptuous indignation 
lowered her head between her fore-feet, and was just making 
a rush at Gibbie, when a stone struck her on a horn, and 
the next moment the herd came up, and with a storm of 
fiercest blows, delivered with full might of his arm, drove her 
in absolute rout back into the meadow. Drawing himself up 
in the unconscious majesty of success, but Donal Grant 
looked down upon Gibbie, but with the eyes of admiration. 

“ Haith, cratur ! ” he said, “ye’re mair o’ a man nor ye’ll 
luik this saven year ! What garred ye rin’ upo’ the deevil’s 
verra horns that gait.?” 

Gibbie stood smiling. 


HORNIE. 83 

Gien’t hadna been for my club we wad baith be owre the 
mime 'gain this time. What ca' they ye, man ? 

Still Gibbie only smiled. 

“Whaur come ye frae? — Wha’s yer fowk.? — Whar div ye 
bide? — Haena ye a tongue i’ yer heid, ye rascal ?" 

. Gibbie burst out laughing, and his eyes sparkled and shone : 
he was delighted with the herd-boy, and it was so long since 
he had heard human speech addressed to himself! 

“The cratur’s feel {foolish^ \” concluded Donal to himself 
.pityingly. “ Puir thing 1 puir thing !” he added aloud, and 
laid his hand on Gibbie’s head. 

It was but the second totich of kindness Gibbie had re- 
ceived since he was the dog’s guest : had he been acquainted 
with the bastard emotion of self-pity, he would have wept ; 
as he was unaware of hardship in his lot, discontent in hia 
heart, or discord in his feeling, his emotion was one- of un- 
mingled delight, and embodied itself in a perfect smile. 

“Come, cratur, an’ I’ll gie ye a piece: ye’ll aiblins un’er- 
stan’ that I” said Donal, as he turned to leave the corn for the 
grass, where Hornie was eating with the rest like the most 
innocent of hum’le {hornless) animals. Gibbie obeyed, and 
followed, as ^^ith slow step and downbent face, Donal led the 
way. For he had tucked his club under his arm, and already 
his greedy eyes were fixed on the book he had carried all the 
time, nor did he take them from it until, followed in full and 
patient content by Gibbie, he had almost reached the middle 
of the field, some distance from Hornie and her companions, 
when, stopping abruptly short, he began without lifting his 
head to cast glances on this side and that. 

“I houp nane o’ them’s swallowed my nepkin 1” he said 
musingly. ‘ ‘ I’m no sure whaur I was sittin’. I hae my place 
i’ the beuk, but I doobt I hae tint my place i’ the gerse.” 

Long before he had ended, for he spoke with utter deliber- 
ation, Gibbie was yards away, flitting hither and thither like a 
butterfly. A minute more and Donal saw him pounce upon 
his bundle, which he brought to him in triump. 

“Fegs ! ye’re no the gowL I took ye for,” said Donal medi- 
tatively. 

Whether Gibbie took the remark for a compliment, or 
merely was gratified that Donal was pleased, the result was a 
merry laugh. 

The bundle had in it a piece of hard cheese such as Gib- 
bie had already made acquaintance with, and a few quarters 
of cakes. - One oT- these Donal broke in two, gave Gibbie the 
half, rejolaced the other, and sat down again to his book— 


84 


SIR GIBBIF.. 


this time with his back against the fell-dyke dividing the grass 
from the corn. Gibbie seated himself, like a Turk, with his 
bare legs crossed under him, a few yards off, where, in silence 
and absolute content, he ate his piece, and gravely regarded 
him. His human soul had of late been starved, even more 
than his body — and that from no fastidiousness ; and it was 
paradise again to be in such company. Never since his 
father s death had he looked on a face that drew him as Don- 
al’s. It was fair of complexion by nature, but the sun had 
burned it brown, and it was covered with freckles. Its fore- 
head was high, with a mass of foxy hair over it, and under it 
two keen hazel eyes, in which the green predominated over 
the brown. Its nose w^as long and solemn, over his well- 
made mouth, which rarely smiled, but not unfrequently trem- 
bled with emotion over his book. For age, Donal was get- 
ting towards fifteen, and was strongly built, and well grown. 
A general look of honesty, and an attractive expression of re- 
poseful friendliness pervaded his whole appearance. Con- 
scientious in regard to his work, he was yet in in danger of 
forgetting his duty for minutes together in his book. The 
chief evil that resulted from it was such an occasional inroad 
on the corn as had that morning taken place ; and many were 
Donahs self-reproaches ere he got to sleep when that had 
fallen out during the day. He knew his master would threaten 
him with dismissal if he came upon him reading in the field, 
but he knew also his master was well aware that he did read, 
and that it was possible to read and yet herd well. It was 
easy enough in this same meadow : on one side ran the Lor- 
rie ; on another was a stone wall ; and on the third a ditch ; 
only the cornfield lay virtually unprotected, and there he had 
to be himself the boundary. And now he sat leaning against 
the dyke, as if he so held a position of special defence ; but 
he knew well enough that the dullest calf could outflank him, 
and invade, for a few moments at the least, the forbidden 
pleasure-ground. He had gained an ally, however, whose 
faculty and faithfulness he little knew yet. P'or Gibbie had 
begun to comprehend the situation. He could not compre- 
hend why or how anyone should be absorbed in a book, for 
all he knew of books was from his one morning of dame- 
schooling ; but he could comprehend that, if one’s attention 
were so occupied, it must be a great vex to be interrupted 
continually by the ever-waking desires of his charge after 
dainties. Therefore, as Donal watched his book, Gibbie for 
Donahs sake watched the herd, and, as he did so, gently pos- 
sessed himself of Donahs club. Nor had many minutes passed 


HORNIE. 


85 

before Donal, raising his head to look, saw the curst cow again 
in the green corn, and Gibbie manfully encountering her with 
the club, hitting her hard upon head and horns, and deftly 
avoiding every rush she made at him. 

‘‘Gie her’t upo’ the nose,” Donal shouted in terror, as he 
ran full speed to his aid, abusing Hornie in terms of fiercest 
vituperation. 

But he needed not have been so apprehensive. Gibbie 
heard and obeyed, and the next moment Horme had turned 
tail and was fleeing back to the safety of the lawful meadow. 

“ Hech, cratur ! but ye maun be come o’ fechtin’ fowk ! ” 
said Donal, regarding him with fresh admiration. 

Gibbie laughed ; but he had been sorely put to it, and the 
big drops were coursing fast down his sweet face. Donal 
took the club from him, and rushing at Hornie, belabored 
her well, and drove her quite to the other side of the field. 
He then returned and resumed his book, while Gibbie again 
sat down near by, and watched both Donal and his charge — 
the keeper of both herd and cattle. Surely Gibbie had at 
last found his vocation on Daurside. with both man and beast 
for his special care I 

By and by Donal raised his head once more, but this time 
it was to regard Gibbie and not the nnwt. It had gradually 
sunk into him that the appearance and character of the cratur 
were peculiar. He had regarded him as a little tramp, whose 
people were not far olf, and who would soon get tired of herd- 
ing and rejoin his companions ; but while he read, a strange 
feeling of the presence of the boy had, in spite of the witch- 
ery of his book, been growing upon him. He seemed to 
feel his eyes without seeing them ; and when Gibbie rose to 
look how the cattle were distributed, he became vaguely un- 
easy lest the boy should be going away. For already he had 
begun to feel him a humble kind of guardian angel. Fie had 
already that day, through him, enjoyed a longer spell of his 
book, than any day since he had been herd at the Mains of 
Glashruach. And now the desire had come to regard him 
more closely. 

For a minute or two he sat and gazed at him. Gibbie gazed 
at him in return, and in his eyes the herd-boy looked the very 
type of power and gentleness. Flow he admired even his suit 
of small-ribbed, greenish-colored corduroy, the ribs much 
rubbed and obliterated I Then his jacket had round brass 
buttons I his trousers had patches instead of holes at the 
knees 1 their short legs revealed warm woolen stockings I and 
his shoes had their soles full of great broad-headed iron tacks 1 


86 


SIR GI3BIE. 


while on his head he had a small round blue bonnet with a 
red tuft ! The little outcast, on the other hand, with his lov- 
ing face and* pure clear eyes, bidding fait to be naked alto- 
gether before long, woke in Donal a divine pity, a tenderness 
like that nestling at the heart of womanhood. The neglected 
creature could surely have no mother to shield him from frost 
and wind and rain. But a strange thing was, that out of this 
pitiful tenderness seemed to grow, like its blossom, another 
unlike feeling — namely, that he was in the presence of a being 
of some order superior to his own, one to whom he would 
have to listen if he spoke, who knew more than he would tell. 
But then Donal was a Celt, and might be a poet, and the 
sweet stillness of the child’s atmosphere made things bud in 
his imagination. 

My reader must think how vastly, in all his poverty, Donal 
was Gibbie’s superior in the social scale. He earned his own 
food and shelter, and nearly four pounds a year besides ; 
lived as well as he could wish, dressed warm, was able for 
his work, and imagined it no hardship. Then he had a 
father and mother whom he went to see every Saturday, and 
of whom he v/as as proud as son could be — a father who was the 
priest of the famil)^, and fed sheep ; a mother who was the 
prophetess, and kept the house ever an open refuge for her 
children. Poor Gibbie earned nothing — never had earned 
more than a penny at a time in his life, and had never dream- 
ed of having a claim to such penny. Nobp(|y seemed to 
care for him, give him anything, do anything for him. Yet 
there he sat before Donal’s eyes, full of service, of smiles, of 
contentment. 

Donal took up his book, but laid it down again and gazed 
at Gibbie. Several times he tried to return to his reading, 
but as often resumed his contemplation of the boy. At 
length it struck him as something more than shyness would 
account for, that he had not yet heard a word from the lips 
of the child, even when running after the cows. He must 
watch him more closely. 

By this it was his dinner time. Again he untied his hand- 
kerchief, and gave Gibbie what he judged a fair share for his 
bulk — namely about a third of the whole. Philosopher as he 
was, however, he could not help sighing a little when he got 
to the end of his diminished portion. But he was better than 
comforted when Gibbie offered him all that yet remained to 
him ; and the smile with which he refused it made Gibbie as 
happy as a prince would like to be. What a day it had been 


HORNIE. 87 

for Gibbie ! A whole human beings and some five and 
twenty four-leg:ged creatures besides, to take care of ! 

After their dinner, Donal gravitated to his book, and Gib- 
bie resumed the executive. Some time had passed when 
Donal, glancing up, saw Gibbie lying flat on his chest, star- 
ing at something in the grass. He slid himself quietly near- 
er, and discovered it was a daisy — one by itself alone ; there 
were not many in the field. Like a mother leaning over her 
child, he was gazing at it. The daisy was not a cold white 
one, neither was it a red one ; it was just a perfect daisy; it 
looked as if some gentle hand had taken it, while it slept and 
its star points were all folded together, and dipped them — 
just a tiny touchy dip, in a molten ruby, so that, when it 
opened again, there was its crown of silver pointed with 
rubies all about its golden sun-heart. 

“He's been readin’ Burns!” said Donal. He forgot that 
the daisies were before Burns, and that he himself had loved 
them before ever he heard of him. Now, he had not heard 
of Chaucer, who made love to the daisies four hundred years 
before Burns. — God only kno’^vs what gospellers they have 
been on his middle-earth. All its days his daisies have been 
coming and going, and they are not old yet, nor have worn 
out their lovely garments, though they patch and darn just 
as little as they toil and spin. 

‘ ‘ Can ye read, cratur asked Donal. 

Gibbie shook his head. 

“ Canna ye speyk, man ? ” 

Again Gibbie shook his head. 

“Can ye hear?” 

Gibbie burst out laughing. He knew that he heard better 
than other people. 

“ Hearken till this than,” said Donal. 

He took his book from the grass, and read, in a chant, or 
rather in a lilt, the Danish ballad of Chyld Dyring, as trans- 
lated by Sir Walter Scott. Gibbies eyes grew wider and 
wider as he listened ; their pupils dilated, and his lips parted : 
it seemed as if his soul were looking out of doors and win- 
dows at once — but a puzzled soul that understood nothing of 
what it saw. Yet plainly, either the sounds, or the thought- 
matter vaguely operative beyond the line where intelligence 
begins, or, it may be, the sparkle of individual word or phrase 
islanded in a chaos of rhythmic motion, wrought somehow 
upon him, for his attention was fixed as by a spell. When 
Donal ceased, he remained open-mouthed and motionless 
for a time ; then, drawing himself slidingly over the grass to 


88 


SIR GIBBIE. 


Donals feet, he raised his head and peeped above his knees 
at the book. A moment only he gazed, and drew back with 
a hungry sigh : he had seen nothing in the book like what 
Donal had been drawing from it — as if one should look into 
the well of which he had just drunk, and see there nothing 
but dry pebbles and sand ! The wind blew gentle, the sun 
shone bright, all nature closed softly round the two, and the 
soul whose children they were, was nearer than the one to the 
other, nearer than sun or wind or daisy or Chyld Dyring. To 
his amazement, Donal saw the tears gathering in Gibbie’s 
eyes. He was as one who gazes into the abyss of God’s will 
— sees only the abyss, cannot see the will, and weeps. The 
child in whom neither cold nor hunger nor nakedness nor 
loneliness could move a throb of self-pity, was moved to tears 
that a loveliness, to him strange and unintelligible, had 
passed away, and he had no power to call it back. 

“Wad ye like to hear’t again ?” asked Donal, more than 
half understanding him instinctively. 

Gibbie’s face answered with a flash, and Donal read the 
poem again, and Gibbie’s delight returned greater than before, 
for now something like a dawn began to appear among the 
cloudy words. Donal read it a third time, and closed the 
book,^for it was almost the hour for driving the cattle home. 
He had never yet seen, and perhaps never again did see, such 
a look of thankful devotion on human countenance as met 
his lifted eyes. 

How much Gibbie even then understood of the lovely eerie 
old ballad, it is impossible for me to say. Had he a glimmer 
of the return of the buried mother? Did he think of his own ? 
I doubt if he had ever thought that he had a mother ; but he 
may have associated the tale with his father, and the boots he 
was always making for him. Certainly it was the beginning of 
much. But the waking up of a human soul to know itself in 
the mirror of its thoughts and feelings, its loves and delights, 
oppresses me with so heavy a sense of marvel and inexplicable 
mystery, that when I imagine myself such as Gibbie then was, 
I cannot imagine myself coming awake. I can hardly be- 
lieve that, from being such as Gibbie was the hour before he 
heard the ballad, I should ever have come awake. Yet here 
I am, capable of pleasure unspeakable from that and many 
another ballad, old and new ! somehow, at one time or 
another, or at many times in one, I have at last come awake ! 
When, by slow filmy unveilings, life grew clearer to Gibbie, 
and he not only knew, but knew that he knew, his thoughts 
always went back to that day in the meadow with Donal 


DONAL GRANT. 


89 


Grant as the beginning of his knowledge of beautiful things in 
the world of man. Then first he saw nature reflected, Nar- 
cissus-like, in the mirror of her humanity, her highest self 
But when or how the change in him began, the turn of the 
balance, the first push towards life of the evermore invisible 
germ — of that he remained, much as he wondered, often as 
he searched his consciousness, as ignorant to the last as I am 
now. Sometimes he was inclined to think the glory of the 
new experience must have struck him dazed, and that was 
why he could not recall wTat went on in him at the time. 

Donal rose and went driving the cattle home, and Gibbie 
lay where he had again thrown himself upon the grass. When 
he lifted his head Donal and the cows had vanished. 

Donal had looked all round as he left the meadow, and 
seeing the boy nowhere, had concluded he had gone to his 
people. The impression he had made upon him faded a little 
during the evening. For when he reached home, and had 
watered them, he had to tie up the animals, each in its stall, 
and make it comfortable for the night ; next, eat his own 
supper ; then learn a proposition of Euclid, and go to bed. 


CHAPTER XV. 

DONAL GRANT. 

Hungering minds come of peasant people as often as of 
any, and have appeared in Scotland as often, I fancy, as in 
any nation ; not every Scotsman, therefore, who may not him- 
self have known one like Donal, will refuse to believe in such 
a herd-laddie. Besides, there are still those in Scotland, as 
well as in other nations, to whom the simple and noble, not 
the commonplace and selfish, is the true type of humanity. 
Of such as Donal, whether English or Scotch, is the ^ class 
coming up to preserve the honor and truth of our Britain, to 
be the oil of the lamp of her life, when those who place her 
glory in knowledge, or in riches, shall have passed from her 
history as the smoke from her chimneys. 

Cheap as education then was in Scotland, the parents of 
Donal Grant had never dreamed of sending a son to college. 
It was difficult for them to save even the few quarterly shil- 
lings that paid the fees of the parish schoolmaster : for Donal, 
indeed, they would have failed even in this^ but for the help 
his brothers and sisters afforded.- After he left school, how- 


90 


SIR GIBBIE. 


ever, and got a place as herd, he fared better than any of the 
rest, for at the Mains he found a friend and helper in hergus 
Duff, his master’s second son, who was then at home from 
college, which he had now attended two winters. Partly that 
he was delicate in health, partly that he was something of a 
fine gentleman, he took no share with his father and elder 
brother in the work of the farm although he was at the Mains 
from the beginning of April to the end of October. He was 
a human kind of soul notwithstanding, and would have been 
much more of a man if he had thought less of being a gentle- 
man. Pie, had taken a liking to Donal, and having found in 
him a strong desire after every kind of knowledge of which 
he himself had any share, had sought to enliven the tedium 
of an existence rendered not a little flabby from want of suffi- 
cient work, by imparting to him of the treasures he had 
gathered. They were not great, and he could never have 
carried him far, for he was himself only a respectable student, 
not a little lacking in perseverance, and giving to dreaming 
dreams of which he was himself the hero. Happily, how- 
ever, Donal was of another sort, and from the first needed but 
to have the outermost shell of a thing broken for him, and 
that Fergus could do : by and by Donal would break a shell 
for himself. 

But perhaps the best thing Fergus did for him was the lend- 
ing him books. Donal had an altogether unappeasable hun- 
ger after every -form of literature with which he had as yet 
made acquaintance, and this hunger Fergus fed with the 
books of the house, and many besides of such as he purchased 
or borrowed for his own reading — these last chiefly poetry. 
But Fergus Duff, while he revelled in the writing of certain 
of the poets of the age,vwas incapable of finding poetry for 
himself in the things around him : Donal Grant, on the other 
hand, while he seized on the poems Fergus lent him, with an 
avidity even greater than his, received from the nature around 
him influences similar to those which exhaled from the words 
of the poet. In some sense, then, Donal was original ; that 
is, he received at first hand what Fergus required to have “ put 
on” him, to quote Celia, in As you Like It, “ as pigeons feed 
their young. Therefore, fiercely as it would have harrowed 
the pride of Fergus to be informed of the fact, he was in the 
kingdom of art only as one who ate of what fell from the table, 
while his father’s herdboy was one of the family. This was 
as far from Donahs thought, however, as from that of Fer- 
gus ; the condescension, therefore, of the latter did not impair 
the gratitude for which the former had such large reason ; and 


DONAL GRANT. 


91 

Donal looked up to Fergus as to one of the lords of the 
world. 

To find himself now in the reversed relation of superior and 
teacher to the little outcast, whose whole worldly having 
might be summed m the statement that he was not absolutely 
naked, woke in Donal an altogether new and strange feeling ; 
yet gratitude to his master had but turned itself round, and 
become tenderness to his pupil. 

After Donal left him in the field, and while he was minister- 
ing, first to his beasts and then to himself, Gibbie lay on the 
gii^iss, as happy as child could well be. A loving hand laid on 
his feet or legs would have found them like ice ; but where 
was the matter so long as he never thought of them ? He could 
have supped a huge bicker of sowens, and eaten a dozen pota- 
toes ; but of what mighty consequence is hunger, so long as 
it neither absorbs the thought, nor causes faintness ? The sun, 
however, was going down behind a great mountain, and its 
huge shadow, made of darkness, and haunted with cold, came 
sliding across the river, and over valley and field, nothing 
staying its silent wave, until it covered Gibbie with the blanket 
of the dark, under which he could not long forget that he was 
in a body to which cold is unfriendly. At the first breath of 
the night-wind that came after the shadow, he shivered, and 
starting to his feet, began to trot, increasing his speed until 
he was scudding up and down the field ^like a wild thing of 
night, whose time was at hand, waiting until the world should 
lie open to* him. Suddenly he perceived that the daisies, 
which all day long had been full-facing the sun, like true 
souls confessing to the father of them, had folded their petals 
together to points, and held them like spear-heads' tipped 
with threatening crimson, against the onset of the night and 
her shadows, while within its white cone each folded in the 
golden heart of its life, until the great father should return, 
and, shaking the wicked out of the folds of the night, render the 
world once more safe with another glorious day. Gibbie gazed 
and wondered ; and while he gazed — slowly, glidingly, back 
to his mind came the ghost-mother of the ballad, and in every 
daisy he saw her folding her neglected orphans to her bosom, 
while the darkness and the misery rolled by defeated. He 
wished he knew a ghost that would put her arms round him. 
He must have had a mother once, he supposed, but he could 
not remember her, and of course she must have forgotten him. 
He did not know that about him were folded the everlasting 
arms of the greafi the one Ghost, which is the Death of death 
■ — the life and soul of all things and all thoughts. The Pres- 


92 


SIR GIBBIE. 


ence, indeed, was with him, and he felt it, but he knew it 
only as the wind and shadow, the sky and closed daisies : in 
all these things and the rest it took shape that it might come 
near him. Yea, the presence was in his very soul, else he 
could never have rejoiced in friend, or desired ghost to mother 
him : still he knew not the Presence. But it was drawing 
nearer and nearer to his knowledge — even in sun and air 
and night and cloud, in beast and flower and herd-boy, un- 
til at last it would reveal itself to him, in him, as Life Plimself. 
then the man would know that in which the child had rejoic- 
ed. The stars came out, to Gibbie the heavenly herd, feeding 
at night, and gathering gold in the blue pastures. He saw 
them, looking up from the grass where he had thrown him- 
self to gaze more closely at the daisies ; and the sleep that 
pressed down his eyelids seemed to descend from the spaces 
between the stars. But it was too cold that night to sleep in 
the fields, when he knew where to find warmth. Like a fox 
into his hole, the child would creep into the corner where God 
had stored sleep for him : back he w'ent to the barn, gently 
trotting, and wormed himself through the cat-hole. 

The straw was gone ! But he remembered the hay. And 
happily, for he was tired, there stood the ladder against the 
loft. Up he went, nor turned aside to the cheese ; but sleep 
was common property still. He groped his way forward 
through the dark loft until he found the hay, when at once 
he burrowed into it like a sand-fish into the wet sand. All 
night the white horse, a glory vanished in the dark, would be 
close to him, behind the thin partition of boards. He could 
hear his very breath as he slept, and to the music of it, audi- 
ble sign of companionship, he fell fast asleep, and slept until 
the waking horses woke him. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

APPRENTICESHIP. 

He scrambled out on the top of the hay, and looked down 
on the beautiful creature below him, dawning radiant again 
with the morning, as it issued undimmed from the black 
bosom of the night. He was not, perhaps, just so well 
groomed as white steed might be ; it was not a stable where 
they kept a blue-bag for their grey horses ; but to Gibbie s 
eyes he was so pure, that he began, for the first time in his 


APPRENTICESHIP. 


93 


life, to doubt whether he was himself quite as clean as he 
ought to be. He did not know, but he would make an ex- 
periment for information when he got down to the burn. 
Meantime was there nothing he could do for the splendid 
creature ? From above, leaning over, he filled his rack with 
hay ; but he had eaten so much grass the night before, that 
he would not look at it, and Gibbie was disappointed. What 
should he do next ? The thing he would like best would be 
to look through the ceiling again, and watch the woman at 
her work. Then, too, he would again smell the boiling por- 
ridge, and the burning of the little sprinkles of meal that fell 
into the fire. He dragged, therefore, the ladder to the oppo- 
site end of the barn, and gradually, with no little effort, raised 
it against the wall. Carefully he crept through the hole, and 
softly round the shelf, the dangerous part of the pass, and so 
on to the ceiling, whence he peeped once more down into 
the kitchen. His precautions had been so far unnecessary, 
for as yet it lay unvisited, as witnessed by its disorder. Sud- 
denly came to Gibbie the thought that here was a chance for 
him — here a path back to the world. Rendered daring by 
the eagerness of his hope, he got again upon the shelf and 
with every precaution lest he should even touch a milkpan, 
descended by the lower shelves to the floor. There finding 
the door only latched, he entered the kitchen, and proceeded 
to do everything he had seen the woman do, as nearly in her 
style as he could. He swept the floor, and dusted the seats, 
the window sill, the table, with an apron he found left on a 
ehair,- then arranged everything tidily, roused the rested fire, 
and had just concluded that the only way to get the great pot 
full of water upon it, would be to hang first the pot on the 
chain, and then fill it with the water, when his sharp ears 
caught sounds and then heard approaching feet. He darted 
into the dairy, and in a few seconds, for he was getting used 
to the thing now, had clambered upon the ceiling, and was 
lying flat across the joists, with his eyes to the most com- 
manding crack he had discovered : he was anxious to know 
how his service would be received. When Jean Mavor — she 
was the farmers half-sister — opened the door, she stopped 
short and stared ; the kitchen was not as she had left it the 
night before ! She concluded she must be mistaken, for who 
could have touched it ! and entered. Then it became plain 
beyond dispute that the floor had been swept, the table wiped, 
the place redd up, and the fire roused. 

“ Hoot ! I maun hae been walkin’ i’ my sleep !” said Jean 
to herself aloud. “ Or maybe that guid laddie Donal Grant’s 


94 


SIR GIBBIE. 


been wullin’ to gie me a helpin’ han’ for’s mither’s sake, hon- 
est wuman ! I'he laddie’s guid eneuch for onything ! — ay, 
gien ’twar to mak’ a minister o’ !” 

Eagerly, greedily, Gibbie now watched her every motion, 
and, bent upon learning, nothing escaped him : he would do 
much better next morning ! — At length the men came in to 
breakfast, and he thought to enjoy the sight ; but, alas ! it 
wrought so with his hunger as to make him feel sick, and he 
crept away to the barn. He would gladly have lain down in 
the hay for a while, but that would require the ladder, and 
he did not now feel able to move it. On the floor of the 
barn he was not safe, and he got out of it into the cornyard 
where he sought the hen-house. But there was no food 
there yet, and he must not linger near ; for, if he were dis- 
covered, they would drive him away, and he would lose 
Donal Grant. He had not seen him at breakfast, for in- 
deed he seldom, during the summer, had a meal except sup- 
per in the house. Gibbie, therefore, as he could not eat, ran 
to the burn and drank — but had no heart that morning for 
his projected inquiry into the state of his person. He must 
go to Donal. The sight of him would help him to bear his 
hunger. 

The first indication Donal had of his proximity was the 
rush of Hornie past him in flight out of the corn. Gibbie was 
pursuing her with stones for lack of a stick. Thoroughly 
ashamed of himself, Donal threw his book from him, and ran 
to meet Gibbie. 

“Ye maunna fling stanes, cratur, ” he said. “ Haith ! it’s 
no for ms to fin’ fau’t, though, ” he added, ‘ ‘ sittin’ readin’ 
buiks like a gowk ’at 1 am, an lattin’ the beasts rin wull amo’ 
the coni, 'at’s weel payed to baud them oot o’t ! I’m clean 
afifrontif wi’ myself, cratur.” 

Gibbie’s response was to set off at full speed for the place 
where Donal had been sittings He was back in a moment 
with the book, which he pressed into Donal’s hand, while 
from the other he withdrew his club. This he brandished 
aloft once or twice, then starting at a steady trot, speedily 
circled the herd, and returned to his adopted master — only to 
start again, however, and attack Hornie, whcm he drove from 
the corn-side of the meadow right over to the other j she was 
already afraid of him. After watching him for a time, .Dcnal 
came to tne conclusion that he could not do more then the 
cratur zf ne nad as many eyes as Aigus, and gave not even 
cne of them to his book. He therefore left all to Gibbie, 
did not once look up for a whole hour. Everything 


APPRENTICESHIP. 


95 


went just as it should ; and not once, all that day, did 
Hornie again get a mouthful of the braird. It was rather a 
heavy morning for Gibbie, though, who had eaten nothing, 
and every time he came near Donal, saw the handkerchief 
bulging in the grass, which a little girl had brought and left 
for him. But he was a rare one both at waiting and at going 
without. 

At last, however, Donal either grew hungry of himself, or was 
moved by certain understood relations between the sun and 
the necessities of his mortal frame ; for he laid down his book, 
called out to Gibbie, “ Cratur, it’s denner-time,” and took his 
bundle. Gibbie drew near with sparkling eyes. There was 
no selfishness in his hunger, for at the worst pass he had ever 
reached, he would have shared what he had with another, but 
he looked so eager, that Donal, who himself knew nothing of 
want, perceived that he was ravenous, and made haste to 
undo the knots of the handkerchief, which Mistress Jean ap- 
peared that day to have tied with more than ordinary vigor, 
ere she intrusted the bundle to the foreman’s daughter. When 
the last knot yielded, he gazed with astonishment at the 
amount and variety of provisions disclosed. 

“ Losh !” he exclaimed, “the mistress maun hae kenned 
ihere was two o’ ’s. ” 

He little thought that what she had given him beyond the 
usual supply was an acknowledgment of services rendered by 
those same hands into which he now delivered a share, on the 
ground of other service altogether. It is not always, even 
where there is no mistake as to the person who has deserved 
it, that the reward reaches the doer so directly. 

Before the day was over, Donal gave his helper more and 
other pay for his service. Choosing a fit time, when the cat- 
tle v^ere well together and in good position, Hornie, away at 
the stone-dyke, he took from his pocket a somewhat wasted 
volume of ballads — ballanfs, he called them — and said, “Sit 
ye doon cratur. Never min’ the nowt. I’m gaen’ to read till ye. ” 

Gibbie dropped on his crossed legs like a lark to the ground 
and sat motionless. Donal, after deliberate search, began to 
read, and Gibbie to listen ; and it would be hard to determine 
which found the more pleasure in his part. For Donal had 
seldom had a listener — and never one so utterly absorbed. 

When the hour came for the cattle to go home, Gibbie 
again remained behind, waiting until all should be still at the 
farm. He lay on the dyke, brooding over what he had heard 
and wondering how it was that Donal got all those strange 
beautiful words and sounds and stories out of the book. 


96 


SIR GIBBIE, 


CHAPTER XVII. 

SECRET SERVICE. 

I MUST not linger over degrees and phases. Every morn- 
ing Gibbie got into the kitchen in good time ; and not only 
did more and more of the work, but did it more and more to 
the satisfaction of Jean, until, short of the actual making of 
the porridge, he did everything antecedent to the men’s break- 
fast. When Jean came in, she had but to take the lid from 
the pot, put in the salt, assume the spurtle, and grasping the 
the first handful of the meal, which stood ready waiting in the 
bossie on the stone cheek of the fire, throw it in, thus com- 
mencing the simple cookery of the best of all dishes to a true- 
hearted and healthy Scotsman. Without further question she 
attributed all the aid she received to the goodness, ^‘enough 
for anything,” of Donal Grant, and continued to make ac- 
knowledgment of the same in both sort and quantity of vic- 
tuals, whence as has been shown the real laborer received his 
due reward. 

Until he had thoroughly mastered his work, Gibbie per- 
sisted in regarding matters economic “from his loophole in 
the ceiling •” and having at length learned the art of making 
butter, soon arrived at some degree of perfection in it. But 
when at last one morning he not only churned, but washed 
and made it up entirely to Jean’s satisfaction, she did begin 
to wonder how a mere boy could both have such persever- 
ance, and be so clever at a woman’s work. For now she 
entered the kitchen every morning without a question of find- 
ing the fire burning, the water boiling, the place clean and 
tidy, the supper dishes well washed and disposed on shelf and 
rack ; her own part was merely to see that proper cloths were 
handy to so thorough a user of them. She took no one into 
her confidence on the matter; it was enough, she judged, 
that she and Donal understood each other. 

And now if Gibbie had contented himself with rendering 
this house-service in return for the shelter of the barn and its 
hay, he might have enjoyed both longer ; but from the posi- 
tion of his night-quarters, he came gradually to understand 
the work of the stable also ; and before long, the men, who 
were quite ignorant of anything similar taking place in the 


SECRET SERVICE. 


97 


house, began to observe, more to their wonder than satisfac- 
tion, that one or other of their horses was generally groomed 
before his man came to him ; that often there was hay in their 
racks which they had not given them ; and that the master’s 
white horse every morning showed signs of having had some 
attention paid him that could not be accounted for. The re- 
sult was much talk and speculation, suspicion and offence ; 
for all were jealous of their rights, their duty, and their dig- 
nity, in relation to their horses : no man was at liberty to do 
a thing to or for any but his own pair. Even the brightening 
of the harness-brass, in which Gibbie sometimes indulged, 
was an offence ; for did it not imply a reproach ? Many were 
the useless traps laid for the offender, many the futile at- 
tempts to surprise him : as Gibbie never did anything except 
for half an hour or so while the men were sound asleep or at 
breakfast, he escaped discovery. 

But he could not hold continued intercourse with the 
splendor of the white horse, and neglect carrying out the 
experiment on which he had resolved with regard to the effect 
of water upon his own skin ; and having found the result a 
little surprising, he soon got into the habit of daily and thor- 
ough ablution. But many animals that never wash are yet 
cleaner than some that do ; and, what with the scantiness of 
his clothing, his constant exposure to the atmosphere, and his 
generally lying in a fresh lair, Gibbie had always been com- 
paratively clean, besides being nice in his mind he was natu- 
rally nice in his body. 

"I'he new personal regard thus roused by the presence of 
Snowball, had its development greatly assisted by the scrupu- 
losity with which most things in the kitchen, and chief of all 
in this respect, the churn, were kept. It required much 
effort to come up to the nicety considered by Jean indispensa- 
ble in the churn ; and the croucher on the ceiling, when he 
saw the long ndse advance to prosecute inquiry into its con- 
dition, mentally trembled lest the next movement should con- 
demn his endeavor as a failure. With his clothes he could do 
nothing, alas ! but he bathed every night in the Lorrie as 
soon as Donal had gone home with the cattle. Once he got 
into a deep hole, but managed to get out again, and so 
learned that he could swim. 

All day he was with Donal, and took from him by much 
the greater part of his labor : Donal had never had such time 
for reading. In return he gave him his dinner, and Gibbie 
could do very well upon one meal a day. He paid him also 
in poetry. It never came into his head, seeing he never spoke, 


98 


SIR GIBBIE. 


to teach him to read. He soon gave up attempting to learn 
anything from him as to his place or people or history, for to 
all questions in that direction Gibbie only looked grave and 
shook his head. As often, on the other hand, as he tried to 
learn where he spent the night, he received for answer only 
one of his merriest laughs. 

Nor was larger time for reading the sole benefit Gibbie con- 
ferred upon Donal. Such was the avidity and growing intel- 
ligence with which the little naked town-savage listened to 
what Donal read to him, that his presence was just so much 
added to Donal’s own live soul of thought and feeling. From 
listening to his own lips through Gibbie^s ears, he not only 
understood many things b etter, but, perceiving what things 
must puzzle Gibbie, came sometimes, rather to his astonish- 
ment, to see that in fact he did not understand them himself. 
Thus the bond between the boy and the child grew closer — 
far closer, indeed, than Donal imagined ; for, although still, 
now and then, he had a return of the fancy that Gibbie might 
be a creature of some speechless race other than human, of 
whom he was never to know whence he came or whither he 
went — a messenger, perhaps, come to unveil to him the 
depths of his own spirit, and make up for the human teach- 
ing denied him, this was only in his more poetic moods, and 
his ordinary mental position towards him was one of kind 
condescension. 

It was not all fine weather up there among the mountains 
in the beginning of summer. In the first week of June even, 
there was sleet and snow in the wind — the tears of the van- 
quished Winter, blown, as he fled, across the sea, from 
Norway or Iceland. Then would Donal’s heart be sore for 
Gibbie, when he saw his poor rags blown about like streamers 
in the wind, and the white spots melting on his bare skin. 
His own condition would then to many have appeared pitiful 
enough, but such an idea Donal would have laughed to scorn, 
and justly. Then most, perhaps then only, does the truly 
generous nature feel poverty, when he sees another in need 
and can do little or nothing to help him. Donal had neither 
greatcoat, plaid, nor umbrella, wherewith to shield Gibbie’s 
looped and windowed raggedness. Once, in great pity, he 
pulled off his jacket and threw it on Gibbie’s shoulders. But the 
shout of laughter that burst from the boy, as he flung the jacket 
from him, and rushed away into the middle of the feeding 
herd, a shout that came from no cave of rudeness, but from 
the very depths of delight, stirred by the loving kindness of 
the act, startled Donal out of his pity into brief anger, and he 


SECRET SERVICE. 


99 


rushed after him in indignation, with full purpose to teach him 
proper behavior by a box on the ear. But Gibbie dived un- 
der the belly of a favorite cow, and peering out sideways from 
under her neck and between her forelegs, his arms grasping 
each a leg, while the cow went on twisting her long tongue 
round the grass and plucking it undisturbed, showed such an 
innocent countenance of holy merriment, that the pride of 
Donahs hurt benevolence melted away, and his laughter 
emulated Gibbie’s. That sort of day was in truth drearier 
for Donal than for Gibbie, for the books he had were not 
his own, and he dared not expose them to the rain ; some 
of them indeed came from Glashruack — the Muckle Hoose, 
they generally called it ! When he left him it was to wander 
disconsolately about the field ; while Gibbie, sheltered under 
a whole cow, defied the chill and the sleet, and had no books 
of which to miss the use. He could not, it is true, shield his 
legs from the insidious attacks of such sneaking blasts as will 
always find out the undefended spots ; but his great heart 
was so welbto-do in the inside of him, that, unlike Touchstone, 
his spirits not being weary, he cared not for his legs. The 
worst storm in the world could not have made that heart quail. 
For, think ! there had just been the strong, the well-dressed, 
the learned, the wise, the altogether mighty and considerable 
Donal, the cowherd, actually desiring him, wee Sir Gibbie 
Galbraith, the cinder of the city furnace, the naked, and gen- 
erally the hungry little tramp, to wear his jacket to cover him 
from the storm ! The idea was one of eternal triumph ; and 
Gibbie exulting in the unheard-of devotion and condescension 
oi tne thing, kept on laughing like a blessed cherub under the 
cow's belly. Nor was there in his delight the smallest ad- 
mixture of pride that he should have drawn forth such kind- 
ness ; it was simple glorying in the beauteous fact. As to the 
cold and the sleet, so far as he knew they never hurt anybody. 
They were not altogether pleasant creatures, but they could 
not help themselves, and would soon give over their teasing. 
By to-morrow they would have wandered away into other 
fields, and left the sun free to come back to Donal and the 
cattle, when Gibbie, at present shielded like any lord by the 
friendliest of cows, would come in for a share of the light and 
the warmth. Gibbie was so confident with the animals, that 
they were already even more friendly with him than with Donal 
— all except Hornie, who, being of a low spirit, therefore 
incapable of obedience, was friendliest with the one who gave 
her the hardest blows. 


lOO 


SIR GIBBIE. 


CHAPTER XVIIL 

THE BROONIE. 

Things had gone on in this way for several weeks — if Gibbie 
had not been such a small creature, I hardly see how they 
could for so long — when one morning the men came in to 
breakfast all out of temper together, complaining loudly of 
the person unknown who would persist in interfering with 
their work. They were the louder that their suspicions flut- 
tered about Fergus, who was rather overbearing with them, 
and therefore not a favorite. He was in reality not at all a 
likely person to bend back or defile hands over such labor, 
and their pitching upon him for the object of their suspicion, 
showed how much at a loss they were. Their only ground 
for suspecting him, beyond the fact that there w^as no other 
whom by any violence of imagination they could suspect, was, 
that, whatever else was done or left undone in the stable. 
Snowball, whom Fergus was fond of, and rode almost every 
day, was, as already mentioned, sure to have something done 
for him. Had he been in good odor with them, they would 
have thought no harm of most of the things they thought he 
did, especially as they eased their work ; but he carried him- 
self high, they said, doing nothing but ride over the farm and 
pick out every fault he could find — to show how sharp he was, 
and look as if he could do better than any of them ; and they 
fancied that he carried their evil report to his father, and that 
this underhand work in the stable must be part of some sly 
scheme for bringing them into disgrace. And now at last 
had come the worst thing of all : Gibbie had discovered the 
corn-bin, and having no notion but that everything in the 
stable was for the delectation of the horses, had been feeding 
them largely with oats — a delicacy with which, in the plenty 
of other provisions, they were very sparingly supplied ; and 
the consequences had begun to show themselves in the in- 
creased unruliness of the more wayward among them. Gibbie 
had long given up resorting to the ceiling, and remained in 
utter ignorance of the storm that was brewing because of him. 

The same day brought things nearly to a crisis ; for the 
overfed Snowball, proving too much for Fergus’s horseman- 


THE BROONIE. 


lOI 


ehip, came rushing home at a fierce gallop without him, hav- 
ing indeed left him in a ditch by the roadside. The remark 
thereupon made by the men in his hearing, that it was his 
own fault, led him to ask questions, when he came gradually 
to know what they attributed to him, and was indignant at 
the imputation of such an employment of his mornings to 
one who had his studies to attend to — scarcely a wise line of 
defence where the truth would have been more credible as 
well as convincing — namely, that at the time when those 
works of supererogation could alone be efiected, he lay as 
lost a creature as ever sleep could make of a man. 

In the evening, Jean sought a word with Donal, and ex- 
pressed her surprise that he should be able to do everybody's 
work about the place, warning him it would be said he did it 
at the expense of his own. But what could he mean, she 
said, by wasting the good corn to put devilry into the horses ? 
Donal stared in utter bewilderment. He knew perfectly that 
to the men suspicion of him was as impossible as of one of 
themselves. Did he not sleep in the same chamber with 
them ? Could it be allusion to the way he spent his time 
when out with the cattle that Mistress Jean intended ? He was 
so confused, looked so guilty as w'ell as astray, and answered 
so far from any point in Jean's mind, that she at last became 
altogether bewildered also, out of which chaos of common 
void gradually dawned on her mind the conviction that she 
had been wasting both thanks and material recognition of 
service, where she was under no obligation. Her first feeling 
thereupon was, not unnaturally however unreasonably, one of 
resentment — as if Donal, in not doing her the kindness her 
fancy had been attributing to him, had all the time been doing 
her an injury ; but the boy's honest bearing and her own good 
sense made her, almost at once, dismiss the absurdity. 

Then came anew the question, utterly unanswerable now' — 
who could it be that did not only all her morning work, but, 
with a passion for labor insatiable, part of that of the men 
also ? She knew her nephew better than to imagine for a 
moment, with the men, it could be he. A good enough lad 
she judged him, but not good enough for that. He w^as too 
fond of his owm comfort to dream of helping other people I 
But now', having betrayed herself to Donal, she wisely went 
farther, and secured herself by placing full confidence in him. 
She laid open the w'hole matter, confessing that she had im- 
aginod her ministering angel to be Donal himself : now she 
had not even a conjecture to thrown at random after the person 
of her secret servant. Donal, being a Celt, and a poet. 


102 


SIR GIBBIE. 


would have been a brute if he had failed of being a gentle- 
man, and answered that he was ashamed it should be another 
and not himself who had been her servant and gained her 
commendation ; but he feared, if he had made any such at- 
tempt, she would but have fared like the husband in the old 
ballad who insisted that his wife’s work was much easier to do 
than his own. But as he spoke, he saw a sudden change 
come over Jean’s countenance. Was it fear.? or what was it.? 
She gazed with big eyes fixed on his face, heeding neither him 
nor his words, and Donal, struck silent, gazed in return. At 
length, after a pause of strange import, her soul seemed to 
return into her deep-set grey eyes, and in a broken voice, low, 
and solemn, and fraught with mystery, she said, 

“Donal, it’s the broonie ! ” 

Donal’s mouth opened wide at the word, but the tenor of 
his thought it would have been hard for him to determine. 
Celtic in kindred and education, he had listened in his time 
to a multitude of strange tales, both indigenous and exotic, 
and, Celtic in blood, had been inclined to believe every one 
of them for which he could find the least raison deetre. But 
at school he had been taught that such stories deserved 
nothing better than mockery, that to believe them was con- 
trary to religion, and a mark of such weakness as involved 
blame. Nevertheless, when he heard the word broonie issue 
from a face with such an expression as Jean’s then wore, his 
heart seemed to give a gape in his bosom, and it rushed back 
upon his memory how he had heard certain old people talk 
of the brownie that used, when their mothers and grandmothers 
were young, to haunt the Mains of Glashruach. His mother 
did not believe such things, but she believed nothing but her 
New Testament ! — and what if there should be something in 
them ? The idea of service rendered by the hand of a being 
too clumsy, awkward, ugly, to consent to be seen by the more 
finished race of his fellow-creatures, whom yet he surpassed 
in strength and endurance and longevity, had at least in it for 
Donal the attraction of a certain grotesque yet homely poetic 
element. He remembered too the honor such a type of crea- 
ture had had in being lapt around for ever in the airy folds of 
L' Allegro. And to think that Mistress Jean, for whom every- 
body had such a respect, should speak of the creature in such 
a tone ! — it sent a thrill of horrific wonder and delight through 
the whole frame of the boy : might, could there be such 
creatures ? And thereupon began to open to his imagination 
vista after vista into the realms of might-be possibility — where 
dwelt whole clans and kins of creatures, differing from us and 


THE BROONIE. 


103 


our kin, yet occasionally, at the cross-roads of creation, com- 
ing into contact with us, and influencing us not greatly, per- 
haps, yet strangely and notably. Not once did the real 
brownie occur to him — the small, naked Gibbie, far more 
marvellous and admirable than any brownie of legendary 
fable or fact, whether celebrated in rude old Scots ballad for 
his taeless feet, or designated in noble English poem of per- 
fect art, as lubber fiend of hairy length. 

Jean Mavor came from a valley far withdrawn in the folds 
of the Gormgarnet mountains, where in her youth she had 
heard yet stranger tales than had ever come to Donahs ears, 
of which some had perhaps kept their hold the more firmly 
that she had never heard them even alluded to since she left 
her home. Her brother, a hard-headed highlander, as canny 
as any lowland Scot, would have laughed to scorn the most 
passing reference to such an existence ; and Fergus, whp had 
had a lowland mother — and nowhere is there less of so-called 
superstition than in most parts of the lowlands of Scotland — 
would have joined heartily in his mockery. For the cow- 
herd, however, as I say, the idea had no small attraction, and 
his stare was the reflection of Mistress Jean’s own — for the 
soul is a live mirror, at once receiving into its centre, and re- 
flecting from its surface. 

“ Div ye railly think it, mem ! ” said Donal at last. 

“Think what?” retorted Jean, sharply, jealous instantly of 
being compromised, and perhaps not certain that she had 
spoken aloud. 

“Div ye railly think ’at there is sic craturs as broonies. 
Mistress Jean?” said Donal. 

“Wha kens what there is an’ what there isna ?” returned 
Jean : she was not going to commit herself either way. Even 
had she imagined herself above believing such things, she 
would not have dared to say so ; for there was a time still 
near in her memory, though unknown to any now upon the 
farm except her brother, when the Mains of Glashruach was 
the talk of Daurside because of certain inexplicable nightly 
disorders that fell out there ; the slang rows, or the Scotch 
remishes (a form of the English romage) would perhaps come 
nearest to a designation of them, consisting as they did of 
confused noises, rumblings, ejaculations ; and the fact itself 
was a reason for silence, seeing a word might bring the place 
again into men’s mouths in like fashion, and seriously affect 
the service of the farm ; such a rumor would certainly be 
made in the market a ground for demanding more wages to 
fee to the Mains. “Ye hand yer tongue, laddie, ” she went 


104 


SIR GIBBIE. 


on; “it’s the least ye can efter a’ ’at’s come an’ gane ; an’ 
least said's sunest mendit. Gang to yer wark.” 

But either Mistress Jean’s influx of caution came too late, 
and some one had overheard her suggestion, or the idea was 
already abroad in the mind bucolic and georgic, for that very 
night it began to be reported upon the nearer farms, that the 
Mains of Glashruach was haunted by a brownie who did all 
the work for both men and maids — a circumstance product- 
ive of different opinions with regard to the desirableness of a 
situation there, some asserting they would not fee to it for any 
amount of wages, and others averring they could desire noth- 
ing better than a place where the work was all done for them. 

Quick at disappearing as Gibbie was, a very little cunning 
on the part of Jean might soon have entrapped the brownie ; 
but a considerable touch of fear was now added to her other 
motives for continuing to spend a couple of hours longer in 
bed than had formerly been her custom. So that for yet a 
few days things went on much as usual ; Gibbie saw no sign 
that his presence was suspected, or that his doings were of- 
fensive ; and life being to him a constant present, he never 
troubled himself about anything before it was there to an- 
swer for itself. 

One morning the long thick mane of Snowball was found 
carefully plaited up in innumerable locks. This was properly 
elf-work, but no fairies had been heard of on Daurside for 
many a long year. The brovmie, on the other hand, was al- 
ready in every one’s mouth— only a stray one, probably, that 
had wandered from some old valley away in the mountains, 
where they were still believed in — but not the less a brownie : 
and if it was not the brownie who plaited Snowball’s mane, 
who or what was it? A phenomenon must be accounted for, 
and he who will not accept a theory offered, or even a word 
applied, is indebted to a full explanation. The rumor spread 
in long slow ripples, till at last one of them struck the mem- 
brana tympani of the laird, where he sat at luncheon in the 
House of Glashruach. 


THE LAIRD, 


105 


CHAPTER XIX. 

THE LAIRD. 

Thomas Galbraith was by birth Thomas Durrant, but had 
married an heiress by whom he came into possession of Glash- 
ruach, and had, according to previous agreement, taken her 
name. When she died, he mourned her loss as well as he 
could, but was consoled by feeling himself now first master 
of both position and possession, when the ladder by which 
he had attained them was removed. It was not that she had 
ever given him occasion to feel that marriage and not inherit- 
ance was the source of his distinction in the land, but that 
having a soul as keenly sensitive to small material rights as it 
was obtuse to great spiritual ones, he never felt the property 
quite his own until his wife was no longer within sight. Had 
he been a little more sensitive still, he would have felt that 
the property was then his daughter’s, and his only through 
her ; but this he failed to consider. 

Mrs. Galbraith was a gentle sweet woman, who loved her 
husband, but was capable of loving a greater man better. 
Had she lived long enough to allow of their opinions con- 
fronting in the matter of their child’s education, serious differ- 
ences would probably have arisen between them ; as it was, 
they had never quarrelled except about the name she should 
bear. The father, having for her sake — so he said to him- 
self — sacrificed his patronymic, was anxious that in order to 
her retaining some rudimentary trace of himself in the ears 
of men, she should be overshadowed with his Christian name, 
and called Thomasina. But the mother was herein all the 
mother, and obdurate for her daughter’s future ; and, as was 
right between the two, she had her way, and her child a pretty 
name. Being more sentimental than artistic, however, she 
did not perceive how imperfectly the sweet Italian Ginevra 
concorded with the strong Scotch Galbraith. Her father hated 
the name, therefore invariably abbreviated it after such fash- 
ion as rendered it inoffensive to the most conservative of Scot- 
tish ears ; and for his own part, at length, never said Ginnv, 
without seeing and hearing and meaning Jenny. As Jenny ^ 
indeed, he addressed her in the one or two letters which w^ere 
all he ever wrote to her ; and thus he perpetuated the one 
matrimonial difference across the grave. 


xo6 


SIR GIBBIE. 


Having no natural bent to literature, but having in his 
youth studied for and practised at the Scottish bar, he had 
brought with him into the country a taste for certain kinds of 
dry reading, judged pre-eminently respectable, and for its in- 
dulgence had brought also a not insufficient store of such 
provender as his soul mildly hungered after, in the shape of 
books bound mostly in yellow-calf — books of law, history, 
and divinity. What the books of law were, I would not fool- 
hardily add to my many risks of blundering by presuming to 
recall; the history was mostly Scottish, or connected with 
Scottish affairs ; the theology was entirely of the New England 
type of corrupted Calvinism, with which in Scotland they sad- 
dle the memory of great-souled. hard-hearted Calvin himself. 
Thoroughly respectable, and a little devout, Mr. Galbraith 
was a good deal more of a Scotchman than a Christian; 
growth was a doctrine unembodied in his creed ; he turned 
from everything new, no matter how harmonious with the 
old, in freezing disapprobation; be recognized no element in 
God or nature which could not be reasoned about after the 
forms of the Scotch philosophy. He would not have said an 
Episcopalian could not be saved, for at the bar he had known 
more than one good lawyer of the episcopal party ; but to 
say a Roman Catholic would not necessarily be damned, 
would to his judgment have revealed at once the impending 
fate of the rash asserter. In religion he regarded everything 
not only as settled but as understood ; but seemed aware of 
no call in relation to truth, but to bark at anyone who showed 
the least anxiety to discover it. What truth he held himself, 
he held as a sack holds corn — not even as a worm holds 
earth. 

To his servants and tenants he was what he thought just — 
never condescending to talk over a thing with any of the for- 
mer but the game-keeper, and never making any allowance 
to the latter for misfortune. In general expression he looked 
displeased, but meant to look dignified. No one had ever 
seen him wrathful ; nor did he care enough for his fellow- 
mortals ever to be greatly vexed — at least he never manifested 
vexation otherwise than by a silence that showed more of 
contempt than suffering. 

In person, he w^as very tall and very thin, with a head much 
too small for his height ; a narrow forehead, above which the 
brown hair looked like a wig; pale-blue, ill-set eyes, that 
seemed too large for their sockets, consequently tumbled 
about a little, and were never at once brought to focus ; a 
large, but soft-looking nose ; a loose-lipped mouth, and very 


THE LAIRD. 


107 


little chin. He always looked as if consciously trying to 
keep himself together. He wore his shirt-collar unusually 
high, yet out of it far shot his long neck, notwithstanding the 
smallness of which, his words always seemed to come from 
a throat much too big for them. He had greatly the look of 
a hen, proud of her maternal experiences, and silent from 
conceit of what she could say if she would. So much better 
would he have done as an underling than as a ruler — as a 
journeyman even, than a master, that to know him was almost 
to disbelieve in the good of what is generally called educa- 
tion. His learning seemed to have taken the wrong fermenta- 
tion, and turned to folly instead of wisdom. But he did not 
do much harm, for he had a great respect for his respecta- 
bility. Perhaps if he had been a craftsman, he might even 
have done more harm — making rickety wheelbarrows, asth- 
matic pumps, ill-fitting window-frames, or boots with a lurk- 
ing divorce in each welt. He had no turn for farming, and 
therefore let all his land, yet liked to interfere, and as much 
as possible kept a personal jurisdiction. 

There was one thing, however, which, if it did not throw 
the laird into a passion — nothing, as I have said, did that — • 
brought him nearer to the outer verge of displeasure than any 
other, and that was, anything whatever to which he could 
affix the name of superstition. The indignation of better 
men than the laird with even a confessedly harmless supersti- 
tion, is sometimes very amusing ; and it was a point of Mr. 
Galbraith’s poverty-stricken religion to denounce all super- 
stitions, however diverse in character, with equal severity. 
To believe in the second sight, for instance, or in any form to 
life as having the slightest relation to this world, except that 
of men, that of animals, and that of vegetables, was with 
him wicked, antagonistic to the Church of Scotland, and in- 
consistent with her perfect doctrine. The very word ghost 
would bring upon his face an expression he meant for wither- 
ing scorn, and indeed it withered his face, rendering it yet 
more unpleasant to behold. Coming to the benighted coun- 
try, then, with all the gathered wisdom of Edinburgh in his 
gallinaceous cranium, and what he counted a vast experience 
of worldly affairs besides, he brought with him also the firm 
resolve to be the death of superstition, at least upon his own 
property. He was not only unaware, but incapable of be- 
coming aware, that he professsd to believe a number of things, 
any one of which was infinitely more hostile to the truth of 
the universe, than all the fancies and fables of a countryside, 
handed down from grandmother to grandchild. When, there- 


SIR GIBBIE. 


io8 

fore, within a year of his settling at Glashruach, there arose a 
loud talk of the Mains, his best farm, as haunted by pres- 
ences making all kinds of tumultuous noises, and even throw- 
ing utensils bodily about, he was nearer the borders of a rage, 
although he kept, as became a gentleman, a calm exterior, 
than ever he had been in his life. For were not ignorant 
clodhoppers asserting as facts what he knew never could take 
place.? At once he set himself with all his experience as a 
lawyer to aid him, to discover the buffooning authors of the 
mischief; where there were deeds there were doers, and 
where there were doers they were discoverable. But his en- 
deavors, unintermitted for the space of three weeks, after 
which the disturbances ceased, proved so utterly without 
result, that he could never bear the smallest allusion to the 
hateful business. For he had not only been unhorsed, but 
by his dearest hobby. 

He was seated with a game pie in front of him, over the 
top of which Ginevra was visible. The girl never sat nearer 
her father at meals than the whole length of the table, where 
she occupied her mother s place. She was a solemn-looking 
child, of eight or nine, dressed in a brown merino frock of 
the plainest description. Her hair, which was nearly of the 
same color as her frock, was done up in two triple plaits, 
which hung down her back, and were tied at the tips with 
black ribbon. To the first glance she did not look a very 
interesting or attractive child ; but looked at twice she was 
sure to draw the eyes a third time. She was undeniably like 
her father, and that was much against her at first sight ; but 
it required only a little acquaintance wdth her face to remove 
the prejudice ; for in its composed, almost resigned expression, 
every feature of her father s seemed comparatively finished, 
and settled into harmony with the rest ; its chaos was sub- 
dued, and not a little of the original underlying design brought 
out. The nose was firm, the mouth modelled, the chin 
larger, the eyes a little smaller, and full of life and feeling. 
The longer it was regarded by any seeing eye, the child’s 
countenance showed fuller of promise, or at least of hope. 
Gradually the look would appear in it of a latent sensitive 
anxiety — then would dawn a glimmer of longing question ; 
and then, all at once, it would slip back into the original 
ordinary look, which, without seeming attractive, had yet at- 
tracted. Her father was never harsh to her, yet she looked 
rather frightened at him ; but then he was cold, very cold, 
and most children would rather be struck and kissed alter- 
nately than neither. And the bond cannot be very close 


THE LAIRD. 


109 


between father ana child, when the father has forsaken his 
childhood. The bond between any two is the one in the 
other ; it is the father in the child, and the child in the 
father, that reach to each other eternal hands. It troubled 
Ginevra greatly that, when she asked herself whether she 
loved her father better than anybody else, as she believed she 
ought, she became immediately doubtful whether she loved 
him at all. 

She was eating porridge and milk ; with spoon arrested in 
mid-passage, she stopped suddenly, and said : — 

‘ ‘ Papa, what’s a broonie ? ” 

“I have told you, Jenny, that you are never to talk broad 
Scotch in my presence,” returned her father. “I would' lay 
severer commands upon you, were it not that I fear tempting 
you to disobey me, but I will have no vulgarity in the dining- 
room. ” 

His words came out slowly, and sounded as if each was a 
bullet wrapped round with cotton wool to make it fit in the 
barrel. Ginevra looked perplexed for a moment. 

“Should I say brownie, papa.?” she asked. 

“How can I tell you what you should call a creature that 
has no existence?” rejoined her father. 

“If it be a creature, papa, it must have a name !” retorted 
the little logician, with great solemnity. 

Mr. Galbraith was not pleased, for although the logic was 
good, it was against him. 

“ What foolish person has been insinuating such contempti- 
ble superstition into your silly head ?” he asked. “Tell me, 
child,” he continued, “that I may put a stop to it at once.” 

He was rising to ring the bell, that he might give the orders 
consequent on the information he expected ; he would have 
asked Mammon to dinner in black clothes and a white tie, 
but on Superstition in the loveliest garb would have loosed all 
the dogs of Glashruach, to hunt her from the property. Her 
next words, however, arrested him, and just as she ended, the 
butler came in with fresh toast. 

“They say,” said Ginevra, anxious to avoid the forbidden 
Scotch, therefore stumbling sadly in her utterance, “there’s a 
broonie — brownie — at the Mains, who dis a’ — does all the 
work. ” 

“What is the meaning of this, Joseph?” said Mr. Gal- 
braith, turning from her to the butler, with the air of rebuke, 
which was almost habitual to him, a good deal heightened. 

“The meanin' o’ what, sir?” returned Joseph, nowise 
abashed, for to him his master was not the greatest man in 


no 


SIR GIBBIE. 


the world, or even in the highlands. “ He’s no a Galbraith,” 
he used to say, when more than commonly provoked with 
him. 

'H ask you, Joseph,” answered the laird, “what this — this 
outbreak of superstition imports.? You must be aware that 
nothing in the world could annoy me more than that Miss 
Galbraith should learn folly in her father s house. That staid 
servants, such as I had supposed mine to be, should use their 
tongues, as if their heads had no more in them than so many 
bells hung in a steeple, is to me a mortifying reflection.” 

“Tongues as weel’s clappers was made to wag, sir ; an’ wag 
they wull, sir, sae lang’s the tow (s/nng) lungs oot at baith 
lugs,” answered Joseph. The forms of speech he employed 
were not unfrequently obscure to his master, and in that ob- 
scurity lay more of Joseph’s impunity than he knew. “Forby 
(desides), sir,” he went on, “gien tongues didna wag, what 
w’y wad you, ’at has to set a’ thing richt, come to ken what 
was wrang .? ” 

“That is not a bad remark, Joseph,” replied the laird, wdth 
woolly condescension. “Pray acquaint me with the whole 
matter. ” 

“I hae naething till acquaint yer honor wi’, sir, but the 
tinga-lingo’ tongues,” replied Joseph; “an ye’ll hae till ar- 
reenge’t like, till yer am settisfaction.” 

Therewith he proceeded to report what he had heard reported 
which was in the main the truth, considerably exaggerated — 
that the work of the house was done over night by invisi- 
ble hands — and the work of the stables, too ; but that in the 
latter, cantrips were played as well ; that some of the men 
talked of leaving the place ; and that Mr. Duff’s own horse. 
Snowball, was nearly out of his mind with fear. 

The laird clenched his teeth, and for a whole minute said 
nothing. Here were either his old enemies again, or some 
who had heard the old story, and m their turn were beating 
the drum of consternation in the ears of superstition. 

“It is one of the men themselves,” he said at last, with out- 
ward frigidity. “Or some ill-designed neighbor,” lie added. 
“But I shall soon be at the bottom of it. Go to the Mains 
at once, Joseph, and ask young Fergus Duff to be so good as 
step over, as soon as he conveniently can.” 

Fergus was pleased enough to be sent for by the laird, and 
soon told him all he knew from his aunt and the men, con- 
fessing that he had himself been too lazy of a morning to take 
any steps towards personal acquaintance with the facts, but 
adding that, as Mr. Galbraith took an interest in the matter, 


THE AMBUSH. 


Ill 


he would be only to happy to carty out any suggestion he 
might think proper to make on tlie subject. 

“Fergus,’ returned the laird, “do you imagine things, 
inanimate can of themselves change their relations in space ? 
In other words, are the utensils m your kitchen endowed with 
powers of locomotion ? Can they take to themselves wings 
and fly.? Or to use a figure more to the point, are they pro- 
vided with members necessary to the washing of their own — 
persons, shall 1 say .? Answer me those points, Fergus.” 

“Certainly not, sir,” answered Fergus solemnly, for the 
laird's face was solemn, and his speech was very solemn. 

“Then, Fergus, let me assure you, that to discover by 
what agency these apparent wonders are effected, you have 
merely to watch. If you fail, I will myself come to your 
assistance. Depend upon it, the thing when explained will 
prove simplicity itself.” 

Fergus at once undertook to watch, but went home not 
quite so comfortable as he had gone ; for he did not alto- 
gether, notwithstanding his unbelief in the so-called super- 
natural, relish the ap})roaching situation. Belief and unbe- 
lief are not always quite plainly distinguishable from each 
other, and Fear is not always certain which of them is his 
mother. He was not the less resolved, however, to carry out 
what he had undertaken — that was, to sit up all night, if nec- 
essary, in order to have an interview with the extravagant and 
erring — spirit, surely, whether embodied or not, that dared 
thus wrong, “domestic awe, night-rest, and neighborhood,” 
by doing people’s work for them unbidden. Not even to 
himself did he confess that he felt frightened, for he was a 
youth of nearly eighteen ; but he could not quite hide from 
himself the fact that he anticipated no pleasure in the duty 
which lay before him. 


CHAPTER XX. 

THE AMBUSH. 

For more reasons than one, Fergus judged it prudent to 
tell not even auntie Jean of his intention ; but, waiting until 
the house was quiet, stole softly from his room and repaired 
to the kitchen — at the other end of the long straggling house, 
where he sat down, and taking his book, an annual of the 
beginning of the century, began to read the story of Kathed 


112 


SIR GIBBIE. 


and Eurelia. Having finished it, he read another. He read 
and read, but no brownie came. His candle burned into 
the socket. He lighted another, and read again. Still no 
brownie appeared, and, hard and straight as was the wooden 
chair on which he sat, he began to doze. Presently he start- 
ed wide awake, fancying he heard a noise ; but nothing was 
there. He raised his book once more, and read until he had 
finished the stories in it ; for the verse he had no inclination 
that night. As soon as they were all consumed, he began to 
feel very eerie: his courage had been sheltering itself behind 
his thoughts, which the tales he had been reading had kept 
turned away from the object of dread. Still deeper and 
deeper grew the night around him, until the bare, soulless 
waste of it came at last, when a brave man might welcome 
any ghost for the life it would bring. And ever as it came, 
the tide of fear flowed more rapidly, until at last it rose over 
his heart, and threatened to stifle him. The direst foe of 
courage is the fear itself, not the object of it ; and the man 
who can overcome his own terror is a hero and more. In 
this Fergus had not yet deserved to be successful. That kind 
of victory comes only of faith. Still, he did not fly the field ; 
he was no coward. At the same time, prizing courage, 
scorning fear, and indeed disbelieving in every nocturnal ob- 
ject of terror except robbers, he came at last to such an all 
but abandonment of dread, that he dared not look over his 
shoulder, lest he should see the brownie standing at his back ; 
he would rather be seized from behind and strangled in his 
hairy grasp, than turn and die of the seeing. The night was 
dark — no moon and many clouds. Not a sound came from 
the close. The cattle, the horses, the pigs, the cocks and 
hens, the very cats and rats seemed asleep. There was not a 
rustle in the thatch, a creak in the couples. It was well, for 
the slightest noise would have brought his heart into his 
mouth, and he would have been in great danger of scaring 
the household, and for ever disgracing himself, with a shriek. 
Yet he longed to hear something stir. Oh ! for the stamp of 
a horse from the stable or the low of a cow from the byre I 
But they were all under the brownie’s spell, and he was com- 
ing — toeless feet, and thumbed but fingerless hands ! as if he 
was made with stockings and Jnintle mittens! Was it the 
want of toes that made him able to come and go so quietly .? 
— ^Another hour crept by ; when lo, a mighty sun-trumpet 
blew in the throat of the black cock ! Fergus sprang to his feet 
with the start it gave him — but the next moment gladness 
rushed up in his heart : the morning was on its way ! and. 


THE AMBUSH. 


foe, to the superstition as he was, and much as he had 
mocked at Donal for what he counted some of his tendencies 
in that direction, he began instantly to comfort himself with 
the old belief that all things of the darkness flee from the 
crowing of the cock. The same moment his courage began 
to return, and the next he was laughing at his terrors, more 
foolish than when he felt them, seeing he was the same man 
of fear as before, and the same circumstances would wrap 
him in the same garment of dire apprehension. In his folly 
he imagined himself quite ready to watch the next night with- 
out even repugnance — for it was the morning, not the night 
that came flrst ! 

When the grey of the dawn appeared, he said to himself he 
would lie down on the bench a while, he was so tired of sit- 
ting ; he would not sleep. He lay down, and in a moment 
was asleep. The light gtew and grew, and the brownie came 
— a different brownie indeed from the one he had pictured — • 
with the daintiest-shaped hands and feet coming out of the 
midst of rags, and with no hair except roughly parted curls 
over the face of a cherub — for the combing of Snowball’s 
mane and tail had taught Gibbie to use the same comb upon 
his own thatch. But as soon as he opened the door of the 
dairy, he was warned by the loud breathing of the sleeper, 
and looking about, espied him on the bench behind the table, 
and swiftly retreated. The same instant Fergus woke, 
stretched himself, saw it was broad daylight, and, with his 
brain muddled by fatigue and sleep combined, crawled shiv- 
ering to bed. Then in came the brownie again ; and when 
Jean Mavor entered, there was her work done as usual. 

Fergus was hours late for breakfast, and when he went into 
the common room, found his aunt alone there. 

“ Weel, auntie,” he said, “ I think I fleggit yer broonie ! ” 

“Did ye that, man? Ay ! — An’ syne ye set tee, an’ did 
the wark yersel to save yer auntie Jean’s auld banes ? ” 

“Na, na ! I was o’er tired for that. Sae wad ye hae been 
yersel’, gien ye had sitten up a’ nicht.” 

“Wha did it, than?” 

“ Ow, jist yersel’, Fm thinkin’, auntie.” 

“ Never a finger o’ mine was laid till’t, Fergus. Gien ye 
fleggit ae broonie, anither cam ; for there’s the wark done, 
the same’s ever ! ” 

“ Damn the cratur ! ” cried Fergus. 

“Whisht, whisht, laddie! he’s maybe bearin’ ye this 
meenute. An’ gien he binna, there’s ane ’at is, an likesna 
sweirin’.” s ' 


SIR GIBBIE. 


tH 

** I beg yer pardon, auntie, but it’s jist provokin’ ! ” returned 
Fergus, and therewith recounted the tale of his night’s watch, 
omitting mention only of his feelings throughout the vigil. 

As soon as he had had his breakfast, he went to carry his 
report to Glashruach. 

The laird was vexed, and told him he must sleep well be- 
fore night, and watch to better purpose. 

The next night, Fergus’s terror returned in full force ; but 
he watched thoroughly notwithstanding, and when his aunt 
entered, she found him there, and her kitchen in a mess. He 
had caught no brownie, it was true, but neither had a stroke 
of her work been done. The floor was unswept ; not a dish 
had been washed ; it was churning-day, but the cream stood 
in the jar in the dairy, not the butter in the pan on the kitchen- 
dresser. Jean could not quite see the good or the gain of it. 
She had • begun to feel like a lady, she said to her- 
self, and now she must tuck up her sleeves and set to work 
as before. It was a come-down in the world, and she did 
not like it. She conned her nephew little thanks, and not 
being in the habit of dissembling, let him feel the same. He 
crept to bed rather mortified. When he woke from a long 
sleep, he found no meal waiting him, and had to content 
himself with cakes* and milk before setting out for “the 
Muckle Hoose.” 

“You must add cunning to courage, my young friend,” 
said Mr. Galbraith ; and the result of their conference was 
that Fergus went home resolved on yet another attempt. 

He felt much inclined to associate Donal with him in his 
watch this time, but was too desirous of proving his courage 
both to himself and to the world, to yield to the suggestion of 
his fear. He went to bed with a book immediately after the 
noon-day meal, and rose in time for supper. 

There was a large wooden press in the kitchen, standing 
out from the wall ; this with the next wall made a little recess, 
in which there was just room for a chair ; and in that recess 
Fergus seated himself, in the easiest chair he could get into 
it. He then opened wide the door of the press, and it cov- 
ered him entirely. 

* It amuses a Scotchman to find that the word cakes, as in “ The Land 
vf Cakesd' is taken, not only by foreigners, but by some English people 
• — as how, indeed, should it be otherwise ? — to mean compositions of 
flour, more or less enriched, and generally appreciable ; whereas, in fact, 
it stands for the dryest, simplest preparation in the world. The genuine 
cakes is — (my grammar follows usage: cakes is broth are ) — literally 
nothing but oatmeal made into a dough with cold water and dried over 
the fire fire — sometimes then in front of it as well. 


THE AMBUSH. 


II5 

This night would have been the dreariest of all for him, the 
laird having insisted that he should watch in the dark, had he 
not speedily fallen fast asleep, and slept all night — so well 
that he woke at the first noise Gibbie made. 

It was broad clear morning, but his heart beat so loud and 
fast with apprehension and curiosity mingled, that for a few 
moments Fergus dare not stir, but sat listening breathless to 
the movement beside him, none the less appalling that it w'as 
so quiet. Recovering himself a little he cautiously moved the 
door of the press, and peeped out. 

He saw nothing so frightful as he had, in spite of himself, 
anticipated, but was not therefore, perhaps, the less astonished. 
The dread brownie of his idea shrunk to a tiny ragged urchin, 
with a wonderful head of hair, azure eyes, and deft hands, 
noiselessly bustling about on bare feet. He watched him at 
his leisure, watched him keenly, assured that any moment he 
could spring upon him. 

As he watched, his wonder sank, and he grew disappoint- 
ed at the collapsing of the lubber-fiend into a poor half-naked 
child upon w'hom both his courage and his fear had been 
wasted. As he continued to w^atch, an evil cloud of anger 
at the presumption of the unknowm minimus began to gather 
in his mental atmosphere, and w^as probably the cause of 
some movement by which his chair gave a loud creak. With- 
out even looking round, Gibbie darted into the dairy, and 
shut the door. Instantly Fergus w^as after him, but only in 
time to see the vanishing of his last heel through the hole in 
the wall, and that way Fergus was much too large to follow 
him. He rushed from the house, and across the corner of 
the yard to the barn-door. Gibbie, who did not believe he 
had been seen, stood laughing on the floor, when suddenly 
he heard the key entering the lock. He bolted through the 
cat-hole — but again just one moment too late, leaving behind 
him on Fergus's retina the light from the soles of two bare 
feet. The key of the door to the rick-yard was inside, and 
Fergus was after him in a moment, but the ricks came close 
to the barn-door, and the next he saw of him was the flutter- 
ing of his rags in the wind, and the flashing of his white skin 
in the sun, as he fled across the clover field ; and before Fer- 
gus was over the wall, Gibbie was a good way ahead towards 
the Lorrie. Gibbie was a better runner for his size than Fer- 
gus, and in better training too ; but, alas ! Fergus's legs were 
nearly twice as long as Gibbie's. The little one reached the 
Lorrie, first, and dashing across it ran up the side of the 
Glashburn, with a vague idea of Clashgar in his head. Fer- 


ii6 


SIR GIBBIE. 


gus behind him was growing more and more angry as he 
gained upon him but felt his breath failing him. Just at the 
bridge to the iron gate to Glashruach, he caught him at last, 
and sunk on the parapet exhausted. The smile with which 
Gibbie, too much out of breath to laugh, confessed himself 
vanquished, would have disarmed one harder-hearted than 
Fergus, had he not lost his temper in the dread of losing his 
labor : and the answer Gibbie received to his smile was a box 
on the ear that bewildered him. He looked pitifully in his 
captor’s face, the smile not yet faded from his, only to receive 
a box on the other ear, which, though a contrary and similar 
both at once, was not a cure, and the water gathered in his 
eyes. Fergus, a little eased in his temper by the infliction, 
and in his breath by the w'all of the bridge, began to ply him 
with questions ; but no answer following, his wrath rose again 
and again he boxed both his ears — without better result. 

Then came the question what was he to do with the re- 
doubted brownie, now that he had him. He W’as ashamed to 
show himself as the captor of such a miserable culprit, but 
the little rascal deserved punishment, and the laird would re- 
quire him at his hands. He turned upon his prisoner and 
told him he w^as an impudent rascal. Gibbie had recovered 
again, and was able once more to smile a little. He had 
been guilty of burglary, said Fergus ; and Gibbie smiled. He 
could be sent to prison for it, said Fergus ; and Gibbie smiled 
— but this time a very grave smile. Fergus took him by the 
collar, which amounted to nearly a third part of the jacket, 
and shook him till he had half torn that third from the other 
two ; then opened the gate, and, holding him by the back of 
the neck, walked him up the drive, every now and then giv- 
ing him a fierce shake that jarred his teeth. Thus, over the 
old gravel, mossy and damp and grassy, and cool to his little 
bare feet, between row’an and birk and pine and larch, like a 
malefactor, and looking every inch the outcast he was, did 
Sir Gilbert Galbraith approach the house of his ancestors for 
the first time. Individually, wee Gibbie was anything but a 
prodigal ; it had never been possible to him to be one ; but 
none the less was he the type and result and representative of 
his prodigal race, in him now once more looking upon the 
house they had lost by their vices and weaknesses, and in him 
now beginning to reap the benefits of punishment. But of 
vice and loss, of house and fathers and punishment, Gibbie 
had no smallest cognition. His history was about him and 
in him, yet of it all he suspected nothing. It would have 
made little difference to him if he had known it all ; he \vould 


THE PUNISHMENT. 


II7 


none the less have accepted everything that came, just as part 
of the story in which he found himself. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

THE PUNISHMENT. 

The house he was approaching had a little the look of a 
prison. Of the more ancient portion the windows were very 
small, and every corner had a turret with a conical cap-roof. 
That part was all rough-cast, therefore grey, as if with age. 
The more modern part was built of all kinds of hard stone, 
roughly cloven or blasted from the mountain and its bould- 
ers. Granite red and grey, blue whinstone, yellow ironstone, 
were all mingled anyhow, fitness of size and shape alone re- 
garded in their conjunctions ; but the result as to color was 
rather pleasing than otherwise, and Gibbie regarded it with 
some admiration. Nor, although he had received from Fer- 
gus such convincing proof that he was regarded as a culprit, 
had he any dread of evil awaiting him. The highest embodi- 
ment of the law with which he had acquaintance was the po- 
lice, and from not one of them in all the city had he ever had 
a harsh word ; his conscience was as void of offence as ever it 
had been, and the law consequently, notwithstanding the 
threats of Fergus, had for him no terrors. 

The laird was an early riser, and therefore regarded the 
mere getting up early as a virtue, altogether irrespective of 
how the time, thus redeemed, as he called it, was spent. This 
morning, as it turned out, it would have been better spent in 
sleep. He was talking to his gamekeeper, a heavy-browed 
man, by the coach-house door, when Fergus appeared hold- 
ing the dwindled brownie by the huge collar of his tatters. A 
more innocent-looking malefactor sure never appeared before 
awful Justice ! Only he was in rags, and there are others be- 
sides dogs whose judgments go by appearance. Mr. Gal- 
braith was one of them, and smiled a grim, an ugly smile. 

“So this is your vaunted brownie, Mr. Duffl"' he said, 
and stood looking down upon Gibbie, as if in his small per- 
son he saw superstition at the point of death, mocked thither 
by the arrows of his contemptuous wit. 

“It’s all the brownie I could lay hands on, sir,” answered 
Fergus. ‘ ‘ I took him in the act. ” 

“Boy,” said the laird, rolling his eyes, more unsteady than 


SIR GIBBIE. 


ii8 

usual with indignation, in the direction of Gibbie, “what 
have you to say for yourself? ” 

Gibbie had no say — and nothing to say that his questioner 
could either have understood or believed ; the truth from his 
lips would but have presented him a lying hypocrite to the 
wisdom of his judge. As it was, he smiled, looking up fear- 
less in the face of the magistrate, so awful in his own esteem. 

“ What is your name ? '' asked the laird, speaking yet more 
sternly. 

Gibbie still smiled and was silent, looking straight in his 
questioners eyes. He dreaded nothing from the laird. Fergus 
had beaten him, but Fergus he classed with the bigger boys 
who had occasionally treated him roughly ; this was a man, 
and men, except they were foreign sailors, or drunk, were 
never unkind. He had no idea of his silence causing annoy- 
ance. Everybody in the city had known he could not 
answer ; and now when Fergus and the laird persisted in 
questioning him, he thought they were making kindly game 
of him, and smiled the more. Nor was there much about 
Mr. Galbraith to rouse a suspicion of the contrary ; for he 
made a great virtue of keeping his temper when most he 
caused other people to lose theirs. 

“I see the young vagabond is as impertinent as he is 
vicious,'’ he said at last, finding that vO no interrogation 
could he draw forth any other response than a smile. “ Here, 
Angus," — and he turned to the gamekeeper — “take him into 
the coach-house, and teach him a little behavior. A touch 
or two of the whip will find his tongue for him." 

Angus seized the little gentleman by the neck, as if he had 
been a polecat, and at arm’s length walked him unresistingly 
into the coach-house. There, wdth one vigorous tug, he tore 
the jacket from his back, and his only other garment, depen- 
dent thereupon by some device known only to Gibbie, fell 
from him, and he stood in helpless nakedness, smiling still : 
he had never done anything shameful, therefore had no 
acquaintance with shame. But when the scowling keeper, 
to whom poverty was first cousin to poaching, and who hated 
tramps as he hated vermin, approached him with a heavy 
cart whip in his hand, he cast his eyes down at his white sides, 
very white between his brown arms and brown legs, and then 
lifted them in a mute appeal, which somehow looked as if it 
were for somebody else, against what he could no longer 
fail to perceive the man’s intent. But he had no notion of 
what the thing threatened amounted to. He had had few 
hard blows in his time, and had never felt a whip. 


THE PUNISHMENT. 


II9 

“Ye deil’s glaur ! ” cried the fellow, clenching the cruel teeth 
of one who loved not his brother, “Is’ lat ye ken what comes 
o’ brakin’ into honest hooses, an’ takin’ what’s no yer ain ! ” 

A vision of the gnawed cheese, which he had never touched 
since the idea ot its being property awoke in him, rose before 
Gibbie’s mental eyes, and inwardly he bowed to the punish- 
ment. But the look he had fixed on Angus was not without 
effect, for the man was a father, though a severe one, and was 
nbt all a brute : he turned and changed the cart whip for a 
gig one with a broken shaft, which lay near. It was well for 
himself that he did so, for the other would probably have 
killed Gibbie. When the blow fell the child shivered all 
over, his face turned white, and without uttering even a moan, 
he doubled up and dropped senseless. A swollen cincture, 
like a red snake, had risen all round his waist, and from one 
spot in it the blood was oozing. It looked as if the lash had 
cut him in two. 

The blow had stung his heart and it had ceased to beat. 
But the gamekeeper understood vagrants ! the young black- 
guard was only shamming ! 

“Up wi’ ye, ye deevil ! or I s’ gar ye,” he said from be- 
tween his teeth, lifting the whip for a second blow. 

Just as the stroke fell, marking him from the nape all down 
the spine, so that he now bore upon his back in red the sign 
the ass carries in black, a piercing shriek assailed Angus’s 
ears, and his arm, which had mechanically raised itself for a 
third blow, hung arrested. 

The same moment, in at the coach-house door shot Gine- 
vra, as white as Gibbie. She darted to where he lay, and 
there stood over him, arms rigid and hands clenched hard, 
shivering as he had shivered, and sending from her body 
shriek after shriek, as if her very soul were the breath of wTich 
her cries were fashioned. It was as if the woman’s heart in 
her felt its roots torn from their home in the bosom of God, 
and quivering in agony, and confronted by the stare of an 
eternal impossibility, shrieked against Satan. 

“Gang awa, missie,” cried Angus, who had respect to this 
child, though he had not yet learned to respect childhood ; 
“he’s a coorse cratur, an’ maun hae’s whups.” 

But Ginevra was deaf to his evil charming. She stopped 
her cries, however, to help Gibbie up, and took one of his 
hands to raise him. But his arm hung limp and motionless ; 
she let it go ; it dropped like a stick, and again she began to 
shriek. Angus laid his hand on her shoulder. She turned 
on him, and opening her mouth wide, screamed at him like a 


120 


SIR GIBBIE. 


wild animal, with all the hatred of mingled love and fear; 
then threw herself on the boy, and covered his body with her 
own. Angus, stooping to remove her, saw Gibbie’s face, and 
became uncomfortable. 

“ He’s deid ! he’s deid ! Ye’ve kilt him, Angus ! Ye’re an 
ill man ! ” she cried fiercely. ‘ ‘ I hate ye. I’ll tell on ye. 
I’ll tell my papa.” 

“Hoot! whisht, missie ! ” said Angus. “It was by yer 
papa’s ain orders I gae him the whup, an’ he weel deserved it 
forby. An’ gien ye dinna gang awa, an’ be a guid yoong 
leddy. I’ll gie ’im mair yet.” 

“I’ll tell God,” shrieked Ginevra with fresh energy of de- 
fensive love and wrath. 

Again he sought to remove her, but she clung so, with both 
legs and arms, to the insensible Gibbie, that he could but lift 
both together, and had to leave her alone. 

“Gien ye daur to touch ’im again, Angus, /’// biieye — bite 
ye~BiTE YE,” she screamed, in a passage wildly crescendo. 

The laird and Fergus had walked away together, perhaps 
neither of them quite comfortable at the orders given, but the 
one too self-sufficient to recall them, and the other too sub- 
missive to interfere. They heard the cries, nevertheless, and 
had they known them for Ginevra’s, would have rushed to the 
spot ; but fierce emotion had so utterly changed her voice — 
and indeed she had never in her life cried out before — that 
they took them for Gibbie’s and supposed the whip had had 
the desired effect and loosed his tongue. As to the rest of the 
household, which would by this time have been all gathered 
in the coach-house, the laird had taken his stand where he 
could intercept them : he would not have the execution of 
the decrees of justice interfered with. 

But Ginevra’s shrieks brought Gibbie to himself. Faintly 
he opened his eyes, and stared, -stupid with growing pain, at 
the tear-blurred face beside him. In the confusion of his 
thoughts he fancied the pain he felt was Ginevra’s, not his, 
and sought to comfort her, stroking her cheek with feeble 
hand, and putting up his mouth to kiss her. But Angus, 
utterly scandalized at the proceeding, and restored to energy 
by seeing that the boy w^as alive, caught her up suddenly and 
carried her off — struggling, writhing, and scratching like a 
cat. Indeed she bit his arm, and that severely, but the man 
never even told his wife. Little Missie was a queen, and lit- 
tle Gibbie was a vermin, but he was ashamed to let the 
mother of his children know that the former had bitten him 
for the sake of the latter. 


THE PUNISHMENT. 


I2I 


The moment she thus disappeared, Gibbie began to appre- 
hend that she was suffering for him, not he for her. His 
whole body bore testimony to frightful abuse. This was 
some horrible place inhabited by men such as those that 
killed Sambo ! He must fly. But would they hurt the little 
girl.? He thought not — she was at home. He started to 
spring to his feet, but fell back almost powerless ; then tried 
more cautiously and got up wearily, for the pain and the ter- 
rible shock seemed to have taken the strength out of every 
limb. Once on his feet, he could scarcely stoop to pick up 
his remnant of trousers without again falling, and the effort 
made him groan with distress. He was in the act of trying 
in vain to stand on one foot, so as to get the other into the 
garment, when he fancied he heard the step of his execu- 
tioner, returning doubtless to resume his torture. He 
dropped the rag, and darted out of the door, forgetting aches 
and stiffness and agony. All naked as he was, he fled like 
the wind, unseen, or at least unrecognized, of any eye. Fer- 
gus did catch a glimpse of something white that flashed across 
a vista through the neighboring wood, but he took it for a 
white peacock, of which there were two or three about the 
place. The three men were disgusted with the little wretch when 
they found that he had actually fled into the open day with- 
out his clothes 1 Poor Gibbie ! it was such a small differ- 
ence ! It needed as little change to make a savage as an 
angel of him. All depended on the eyes that saw him. 

He ran he knew not whither, feeling nothing but the desire 
first to get into some covert, and then to run farther. His 
first rush was for the shubbery, his next across the little park 
to the wood beyond. He did not feel the wind of his run- 
ning on his bare skin. He did not feel the hunger that had 
made him so unable to bear the lash. On and on he ran, 
fancying ever he heard the cruel Angus behind him. If a dry 
twig snapped, he thought it was the crack of the whip ; and 
a small wind that rose suddenly in the top of a pine, seemed 
the hiss with which it was about to descend upon him. He 
ran and ran, but still there seemed nothing between him and 
his persecutors. He felt no safety. At length he came where 
a high wall joining some water, formed a boundary. The 
water was a brook from the mountain, here widening and 
deepening into a still pool. He had been once out of his 
depth before : he threw himself in, and swam straight across : 
ever after that, swimming seemed to him as natural as walk- 
ing. 

Then first awoke a faint sense of safety ; for on the other 


122 


SIR GIBBIE. 


side he was knee deep in heather. He was on the wild hill, 
with miles on miles of cover ! Here the unman could not 
catch him. It must be the same that Donal pointed out to 
him one day at a distance ; he had a gun, and Donal said he 
had once shot a poacher and killed him. He did not know 
what a poacher was : perhaps he was one himself, and the 
man would shoot him. They could see him quite well from 
the other side ! he must cross the knoll first, and then he 
might lie down and rest. He would get right into the heather 
and lie with it all round and over him till the night came. 
Where he would go then, he did not know. But it was 
all one ; he could go anywhere. Donal must mind his cows, 
and the men must mind the horses, and Mistress Jean must 
mind her kitchen, but Sir Gibbie could go where he pleased. 
He would go up Daurside ; but he would not go just at once ; 
that man might be on the outlook for him, and he wouldn’t 
like to be shot. People who were shot lay still, and were 
put into holes in the earth, and covered up, and he would 
not like that. 

Thus he communed with himself as he went over the knoll. 
On the other side he chose a rail patch of heather, and crept 
under. How'^ nice and warm and kind the heather felt, though 
it did hurt the weals dreadfully sometimes. If he only had 
something to cover just them ! There seemed to be one down 
his back as well as round his waist ! 

And now Sir Gibbie, though not much poorer than he had 
been, really possessed nothing separable, except his hair and 
his nails — nothing therefore that he could call his, as distin- 
guished from him. His sole other possession was a negative 
quantity — his hunger, namely, for he had not even a meal in 
his body : he had eaten nothing since the preceding nocn. 
I am wrong — he had one possession besides, though hardly a 
separable one — a ballad about a fair lady and her page, which 
Donal had taught him. That he now began to repeat to 
himself, but was disappointed to find it a gccd deal withered. 
He was not nearly reduced to extremity yet though' — this little 
heir of the world : in his body he had splendid health, in his 
heart a great courage, and in his soul an ever-throbbing love. 
It was his love to the very image of man, that made the horror 
of the treatment he had received. Angus was and was not 
a man ! After all, Gibbie was still one to be regarded with 
holy envy. 

Poor Ginny was sent to bed for interfering with her father’s 
orders ; and what with rage and horror and pity, an inexplic- 
able feeling of hopelessness took possession of her, while 


THE PUNISHMENT. 


123 


her affection for her father was greatly, perhaps for this 
world irretrievably, injured by that morning’s experience ; a 
something remained that never passed from her, and that 
something, as often as it stirred, rose between him and her. 

Fergus told his aunt what had taken place, and made much 
ganae of her brownie. But the more Jean thought about the 
affair, the less she liked it. It was she upon whom it all 
came ! What did it matter who or what her brownie was ? 
And what had they whipped the creature for ? What harm 
had he done ? If indeed he was a little ragged urchin, the 
thing was only the more inexplicable ! He had taken noth- 
ing ! She had never missed so much as a barley scon ! The 
cream had always brought her the right quantity of butter! 
Not even a bannock, so far as she knew, was ever gone from 
the press, or an egg from the bossie where they lay heaped ! 
There was more in it than she could understand ! Her 
nephew’s mighty feat, so far from explaining anything, had 
only sealed up the mystery. She could not help cherishing a 
shadowy hope that, when things had grown quiet, he would 
again reveal his presence by his work, if not by his visible 
person. It was mortifying to think that he had gone as he 
came, and she had never set eyes upon him. But Fergus’s 
account of his disappearance had also, in her judgment, a 
decided element of the marvellous in it. She was strongly 
inclined to believe that the brownie had cast a glamor over 
him and the laird and Angus, all three, and had been mak- 
ing game of them for his own amusement. Indeed Daurside 
generally refused the explanation of the brownie presented for 
its acceptance, and the laird scored nothing against the arch- 
enemy Superstition. 

Donal Grant, missing his “ cratur ” that day for the first 
time, heard enough when he came home to satisfy him that 
he had been acting the brownie in the house and the stable as 
well as in the field, incredible as it might well appear that such 
a child should have had even mere strength for what he did. 
Then first also, after he had thus lost him, he began to under- 
stand his worth, and to see how much he owed him. While he 
had imagined himself kind to the u^hin, the urchin had been 
laying him under endless obligation. For he left him with 
ever so much more in his brains than when he came. Th’s 
book in fact, through his aid, he had read thoroughly ; and 
a score or so of propositions had been added to his stock 
in Euclid. His first feeling about the child revived as he 
pondered — namely, that he was not of this world. But even 
then Donal did not know the best Gibbie had done for him. 


124 


SIR GIBBIE. 


He did not know of what far deeper and better things he had, 
through his gentleness, his trust, his loving service, his abso- 
lute unselfishness, sown the seeds in his mind. On the other 
hand, Donal had in return done more for Gibbie than he 
knew, though what he had done for him, namely, shared his 
dinners with him, had been less of a gift than he thought, 
and Donal had rather been sharing in Gibbie’s dinner, than 
Gibbie in Donahs. 


CHAPTER XXIE 

REFUGE. 

It was a lovely Saturday evening on Glashgar. The few 
flowers about the small turf cottage scented the air in the hot, 
western sun. The heather was not in bloom yet, and there 
were no trees ; but there were rocks and stones, and a brawling 
burn that half surrounded a little field of oats, one of potatoes, 
and a small spot with a few stocks of cabbage and kail, on the 
borders of which grew some bushes of double daisies, and 
primroses, and carnations. These Janet tended as part of 
her household, while her husband saw to the oats and pota- 
toes. Robert had charge of the few sheep on the mountain 
which belonged to the farmer at the Mains, and for his trouble 
had the cottage and the land, most of which he had himself 
reclaimed. He had also a certain allowance of meal, which 
was paid in portions, as corn went from the farm to the mills. 
If they happened to [fall short, the miller would always ad- 
vance them as much as they needed, repaying himself — and 
not very strictly — the next time the corn was sent from the 
Mains. They were never in any want, and never had any 
money, except what their children brought them out of their 
small wages. But that was plenty for their every need, nor 
had they the faintest feeling that they were persons to be 
pitied. It was very cold up there in winter, to be sure, and 
they both suffered from rheumatism ; but they had no debt, 
no fear, much love, and between them, this being mostly 
Janet’s, a large hope for what lay on the other side of death ; 
as to the rheumatism, that was necessary, Janet said, to teach 
them patience, for they had no other trouble. They were in- 
deed growing old, but neither had begun to feel age a burden 
yet, and when it should prove such, they had a daughter pre- 
pared to give up service and go home to help them. Their 
thoughts about themselves were nearly lost in their thoughts 


REFUGE. 


125 


about each other, their children, and their friends. Janet’s 
main care was her old man, and Robert turned to Janet as 
the one stay of his life, next to the God in whom he trusted. 
He did not think so much about God as she ; he was not 
able : nor did he read so much of his Bible ; but she often 
read to him ; and when any of his children were there of an 
evening, he always “took the book.” While Janet prayed at 
home, his closet was the mountain-side, where he would kneel 
in the heather, and pray to Him who saw unseen, the King 
eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God. The sheep 
took no heed of him, but sometimes when he rose from his 
knees and saw Oscar gazing at him with deepest regard, 
he would feel a little as if he had not quite entered enough 
into his closet and would wonder what the dog was think- 
ing. All day, from the mountain and sky and preaching 
burns, from the sheep and his dog, from winter storms, spring 
sun and winds, or summer warmth and glow, but more than 
all, when he went home, from the presence and influence of 
his wife, came to him somehow — who can explain how ! — 
spiritual nourishment and vital growth. One great thing in 
it was, that he kept growing wiser and better without know- 
ing it. If St. Paul had to give up judging his own self, per- 
haps Robert Grant might get through without ever beginning 
it. He loved life, but if he had been asked why, he might 
not have found a ready answer. He loved his wife — ^just be- 
cause she was Janet. Blithely he left his cottage in the morn- 
ing, deep breathing the mountain air, as if it were his first in 
the blissful world ; and all day the essential bliss of being was 
his ; but the immediate hope of his heart was not the heaven- 
ly city ; it was his home and his old woman, and her talk of 
what she had found in her Bible that day. Strangely mingled 
— mingled even to confusion with his faith in God, was his ab- 
solute trust in his wife — a confidence not very different in kind 
from the faith which so many Christians place in the mother 
of our Lord. To Robert, Janet was one who knew — one who 
was far with the Father of lights. She perceived his 

intentions, understood his words, did his will, dwelt in the 
secret place of the Most High. When Janet entered into the 
kingdom of her Father, she would see that he was not left 
outside. He was as sure of her love to himself as he was of 
God’s love to her, and was certain she could never be con- 
tent without her old man. He was himself a dull soul, he 
thought, and could not expect the great God to take much 
notice of him, but he would allow Janet to look after him. 
He had a vague conviction that he would not be very hard to 


126 


SIR GIBBIE. 


save, for he knew himself ready to do whatever was required 
of him. None of all this was plain to his consciousness, 
however, or I daresay he would have begun at once to com- 
bat the feeling. 

His sole anxiety, on the other hand, was neither about life 
nor death, about this world nor the next, but that his chil- 
dren should be honest and honorable, fear God and keep his 
commandments. Around them, all and each, the thoughts 
of father and mother were constantly hovering — as if to watch 
them, and ward off evil. 

Almost from the day, now many years ago, when because 
of distance and difficulty, she ceased to go to church, Janet 
had taken to her New Testament in a new fashion. 

She possessed an instinctive power of discriminating charac- 
ter which had its root and growth in the simplicity of her own ; 
she had always been a student of those phases of humanity 
that came within her ken ; she had a large share of that inter- 
est in her fellows and their affairs which is the very bloom upon 
ripe humanity ; with these qualifications, and the interpreta- 
tive light afforded to her own calm practical way of living, she 
came to understand men and their actions, especially where the 
latter differed from what might ordinarily have been expected, 
in a marvellous way : her faculty amounted almost to sympa- 
thetic contact with the very humanity. When, therefore, she 
found herself in this remote spot where she could see so little of 
her kind, she began, she hardly knew by what initiation, to turn 
her study upon the story of our Lord’s life. Nor was it long be- 
fore it possessed her utterly, so that she concentrated upon it all 
the light and power of vision she had gathered from her experi- 
ence of humanity. It ought not therefore to be wonderful how 
much she now understood of the true humanity — with what 
simple directness she knew what many of the words of the Son 
of Man meant, and perceived many of the germs of his individ- 
ual actions. Hence it followed naturally that the thought of 
him, and the hope of one day seeing him, became her one in- 
forming idea. She was now such another as those women who 
ministered to him on the earth. 

A certain gentle indifference she showed to things consid- 
ered important, the neighbors attributed to weakness of char- 
acter, and called softness] while the honesty, energy, and 
directness with which she acted upon insights they did not 
possess, they attributed to intellectual derangement. She 
was “ ower easy,” they said, when the talk had been of pru- 
dence or worldly prospect ; she was “ower hard,” they said, 
when the question had been right and wrong. 


REFUGE. 


127 


The same afternoon, a neighbor, on her way over the 
shoulder of the hill to the next village, had called upon her 
and found her brushing the rafters of her cottage with a broom 
at the end of a long stick. 

“Save ’s a’, Janet ! what are ye after.? I never saw sic a 
thing ! ” she exclaimed. 

“I kenna hoo I never thought o’ sic a thing afore, ’’an- 
swered Janet, leaning her broom against the wall, and dusting 
a chair for her visitor ; “ but this mornin’, wha my maun an’ 
me was sittin’ at oor brakfast, there cam’ sic o clap o’ thunner 
’at it jist garred the bit hoosie trim’le ; an doon fell a snot o’ 
soot intil the very spune ’at my man was cairryin’ till’s honest 
moo. That cudna be as thing war inten’it, ye ken ; sae what 
was to be said but set them richt?” 

“Ow, weel ! but ye micht hae waitit till Donal cam’ hame; 
he wad hae dune’t in half the time, an’ no raxed his jints.” 

“I cudna pit it aff, ” answered Janet. “Wha kenned whan 
the Lord micht come ? — He canna come at cock-crawin’ the 
day, but he may be here afore nicht.” 

“Weel, I’s awa,” said her visitor rising. “I’m gaunin’ 
ower to the toon to buy a feow hanks o’ worset to weyve a 
pair o’ stockins to my man, Guid day to ye, Janet. — What 
netst, I won’er ? ” she added to herself as she left the house. 
“The wuman’s clean dementit ! ” 

The moment she was gone, Janet caught up her broom 
again, and went spying about over the roof — ceiling there 
was none — after long tangles of agglomerated cobweb and 
smoke. 

“ Ay ! ” she said to herself, “ wha kens whan he may be at 
the door.? an’ I wadna like to hear him say — 'Janet, ye micht 
hae had yer hoose a bit cleaner, whan ye kenned I micht be 
at han’ ! ’” 

With all the cleaning she could give it, her cottage would 
have looked but a place of misery to many a benevolent wo- 
man, who, if she had lived there, would not have been so benev- 
lent as Janet, or have kept the place half so clean. For her 
soul was alive and rich, and out of her soul, not education or 
habit, came the smallest of her virtues. — Having finished at 
last, she took her besom, to the door, and beat it against a 
stone. That done, she stood looking along the path down 
the hill. It was that by which her sons and daughters, every 
Saturday, came climbing, one after the other, to her bosom, 
from their various labors in the valley below, through the sun- 
set, through the long twilight, through the moonlight, each 
urged by a heart eager to look again upon father and mother. 


128 


SIR GIBBIE. 


The sun was now far down his western arc, and nearly on 
a level with her eyes ; and as she gazed into the darkness of 
the too much light, suddenly emerged from it, rose upward, 
staggered towards her — was it an angel ? was it a spectre ? 
Did her old eyes deceive her ? or was the second sight born in 
her now first in her old age ? — It seemed a child — reeling, 
and spreading out hands that groped. She covered her eyes 
for a moment, for it might be a vision in the sun, not on the 
earth — and looked again. It was indeed a naked child ! and 
was she still so dazzled by the red sun as to see red where red 
was none.? — or were those indeed blood-red streaks on his 
white skin ? Straight now, though slow, he came towards 
her. It was the same child who had come and gone so 
strangely before ! He held out his hands to her, and fell on 
his face at her feet like one dead. Then, with a horror of 
pitiful amazement, she saw a great cross marked in two cruel 
stripes on his back ; and the thoughts that thereupon went 
coursing through her loving imagination, it would be hard to 
set forth. Could it be the Lord was still, child and man, 
suffering for his race, to deliver his brothers and sisters from 
their sins ? — wandering, enduring, beaten, blessing still ? ac- 
cepting the evil, slaying it, and returning none ? his patience 
the one rock where the evil word finds no echo ; his heart the 
one gulf into which the dead-sea wave rushes with no recoil 
— from which ever flows back only purest water, sweet and 
cool ; the one abyss of destroying love, into which all wrong 
tumbles, and finding no reaction, is lost, ceases for ever more ? 
there, in its own cradle, the primal order is still nursed, still re- 
stored ; thence is still sent forth afresh, to leaven with new life the 
world ever ageing ! Shadowy and vague they were — but vaguely 
shadowed were thoughts like these in Janet’s mind, as she stood 
half stunned, regarding for one moment motionless the prostrate 
child and his wrongs. The next she lifted him in her arms, 
and holding him tenderly to her mother-heart, carried him 
into the house, murmuring over him dovelike sounds of pity 
and endearment mingled with indignation. There she laid 
him on his side m her bed, covered him gently over, and has- 
tened to the little byre at the end of the cottage, to get him 
some warm milk. When she returned, he had already lifted 
his heavy eyelids, and was looking wearily about the place. 
But w’hen he saw her, did ever so bright a sun shine as that 
smile of his 1 Eyes and mouth and whole face flashed upon 
Janet ! She set down the milk, and went to the bedside. 
Gibbie put up his arms, threw them around her neck, and 
clung to her as if she had been his mother. And from that 


REFUGE. 


129 


moment she was his mother : her heart was oig enough to 
mother all the children of humanity. She was like Charity 
herself, with her babes innumerable. 

“What have they done to ye, my bairn ? ’’ she said, in tones 
pitiful with the pity of the Shepherd of the sheep himself. 

No reply came back — only another heavenly smile, a smile 
of absolute content. For what were stripes and nakedness 
and hunger to Gibbie, now that he had a woman to love ! 
Gibbie’s necessity was to love ; but here was more ; here was 
'Love offering herself to him ! Except in black Sambo he had 
scarcely caught a good sight of her before. He had never 
before been kissed by that might of God’s grace, a true wo- 
man. She was an old woman who kissed him ; but none who 
have drunk of the old wine of love, straightway desire the 
new, for they know that the old is better. Match such as hers 
with thy love, maiden of twenty, and where wilt thou find the 
man I say not worthy, but fit to mate with thee ! For hers was 
love indeed — not the love of love — but the love of life. Already 
Gibbie’s faintness was gone — and all his ills with it. She raised 
him with one arm, and held the bowl to his mouth, and he drank; 
but all the time he drank, his eyes were fixed upon hers. When 
she laid him down again, he turned on his side, off his scored 
back, and in a moment was fast asleep. She stood gazing at him. 
So still was he, that she began to fear he was dead, and laid her 
hand on his heart. It was beating steadily, and she left him to 
make some gruel for him against his waking. Her soul was glad, 
for she was ministering to her Master, not the less in his own self, 
that it was in the person of one of his little ones. Gruel, as such 
a one makes it, is no common fare, but delicate enough for a 
queen. She set it down by the fire, and' proceeded' to lay the 
supper for her expected children. The clean yellow-white 
table of soft smooth fir, needed no cloth — only horn spoons 
and wooden caups. 

At length a hand came to the latch, and mother and 
daughter greeted as mother and daughter only can ; then 
came a son, and mother and son greeted as mother and son 
only can. They kept on arriving singly to the number of 
six — two daughters and four sons, the youngest some little 
time after the rest. Each, as he or she came, Janet took to 
the bed, and showed her seventh child where he slept. ,Each 
time she showed him, to secure like pity with her own, she 
turned down the bedclothes, and revealed the little .back, 
smitten with the eternal memorial of the divine perfection. 
Thje women wept. The young men were furious, each after 
ms fashion. 


6 


SIR GIBBIE. 


130 

“God damn the rascal ’at did it!” cried one of them, 
clenching his teeth and forgetting himself quite in the rage of 
the moment. 

“Laddie, tak back the word,” said his mother calmly. 
“ Gien ye dinna forgie yer enemies, ye’ll no be forgi’en 
yersel’.” 

“ That’s some hard, mither,” answered the offender, with 
an attempted smile. 

“ Hard 1 ” she echoed ; it may weel be hard, for it canna 
be helpit. What wad be the use o’ forgiein’ ye, or hoo cud 
it win at ye, or what wad ye care for’t, or mak o’t, carryin’ a 
hell o’ hate i’ yer verra hert ? For gien God be love, hell 
maun be hate. My bairn, them ’at winna forgie their enemies, 
cairries sic a nest o’ deevilry i’ their ain boasoms, ’at the verra 
speerit o’ God himsel’ canna win in till’t for bein’ scomfished 
wi’ smell an’ reik. Muckle guid wad only pardon dee to sic ! 
But ance lat them un’erstan’ ’at he canna forgie them, an’ 
maybe they’ll be fleyt, an’ turn again’ the Sawtan ’at’s i’ 
them.” 

“Weel, but he’s no my enemy,” said the youth. 

“No your enemy !” returned his mother; “ no your 

enemy, an’ sair {serve) a bairn like that I My certy ! but he’s 
the enemy o’ the haill race o’ mankin’. He trespasses unco 
sair against me, I’m weel sure o’ that 1 An’ I’m glaid o’ 't. 
I’m glaid ’at he has me for ane o’ ’s enemies, for I forgie him 
for ane ; an’ wuss him sae affrontit wi’ himsel’ er’ a’ he dune, 
’at he wad fain hide his heid in a midden.” 

“ Noo, noo, mither ! ” said the eldest son, who had not yet 
spoken, but whose countenance had been showing a mighty 
indignation, “that’s surely as sair a bannin’ as )on ’at Jock 
said.” 

“What, laddie ! Wad ye hae a fellow-cratur live to a’ 
eternity ohn been ashamed o’ sic a thing ’s that .? Wad that 
be to wuss him weel ? Kenna ye ’at the mair shame the mair 
grace } My word was the best beginnin’ o’ better ’at I cud 
wuss him. Na, na, laddie I frae my verra hert, I wuss he 
may be that affrontit wi’ himsel’ ’at he canna sae muckle as 
lift up’s een to h’aven, but maun smite upo’ ’s breist an’ say, 

^ God be mercifu’ to me a sinner I ’ That’s my curse upo’ 
him, for I wadna hae ’im a deevil. Whan he comes to think 
that shame o’ himsel’. I’ll tak him to my hert, as I tak the 
bairn he misguidit. Only I doobt I’ll be lang awa afore that, 
for it taks time to fess a man like that till’s holy senses.” 

The sixth of the family now entered, and his mother led 
him up to the bed. 


REFUGE. 


I3I 

**The Lord preserve’s!” cried Donal Grant, ‘Gt’s the 
cratur 1 — An’ is that the gait they hae guidit him 1 The 
quaietest cratur an’ the willin’est 1 ” 

Donal began to choke. 

“Ye ken him than, laddie?” said his mother. 

“Weel that,” answered Donal. “He’s been wi’ me an’ 
the nowt ilka day for weeks till the day.” 

With that he hurried into the story of his acquaintance with 
Gibbie ; and the fable of the brownie would soon have dis- 
appeared from Daurside, had it not been that Janet desired 
them to say nothing about the boy, but let him be forgotten 
by his enemies, till he grew able to take care of himself. Be- 
sides, she said, their father might get into trouble with the 
master and the laird, if it were known they had him. 

Donal vowed to himself, that, if Fergus had had a hand in 
the abuse, he would never speak civil word to him again. 

He turned towards the bed, and there were Gibbie’s azure 
eyes wide open and fixed upon him. 

“Eh, ye cratur!” he cried ; and darting to the bed, he 
took Gibbie’s face between his hands, and said, in a voice to 
which pity and sympathy gave a tone like his mother’s: 

“ Whaten a deevil was’t ’at lickit ye like that ? Eh ! I wuss 
I had the trimmin’ o’ him ! ” 

Gibbie smiled. 

“Has the ill-guideship ta’en the tongue frae ’im, think 
ye ? ” asked the mother. 

“Na, na,” answered Donal ; “he’s been like that sin’ ever 
I kenned him. I never h’ard word frae the moo’ o’ ’im.” 

“ He’ll be ane o’ the deif an’ dumb,” said Janet. 

“ He’s no deif, mither ; that I ken weel; but dumb he 
maun be. I’m thinkin’. — Cratur,” he continued, stooping over 
the boy, “gien ye hear what I’m sayin’, tak hand o’ my 
nose. ” 

Thereupon, with a laugh like that of an amused infant, 
Gibbie raised his hand, and with thumb and forefinger gently 
pinched Donal’s large nose, at which they all burst out laugh- 
ing with joy. It was as if they had found an angel’s baby in 
the bushes, and been afraid he was an idiot, but were now 
relieved. Away went Janet, and brought him his gruel. It 
was with no small difficulty and not without a moan or two, 
that Gibbie sat up in the bed to take it. There was some- 
thing very pathetic in the full content with which he sat there 
in his nakedness, and looked smiling at them all. It was 
more than content — it was bliss that shone in his countenance. 
He took the wooden bowl, and began to eat ; and the look 


132 


SIR GIBBIE. 


he cast on Janet seemed to say he had never tasted such de- 
licious food. Indeed he never had; and the poor cottage, 
where once more he was a stranger and taken in, appeared to 
Gibbie a place of wondrous wealth. And so it was — not 
only in the best treasures, those of loving kindness, but in all 
homely plenty as well for the needs of the body — a very tem- 
ple of the God of simplicity and comfort — rich in warmth and 
rest and food. 

Janet went to her kist whence she brought out a garment 
of her own, and aired it at the fire. It had no lace at the neck 
or cuffs, no embroidery down the front ; but when she put it 
on him, amid the tearful laughter of the women, and had tied 
it around his waist with a piece of list that had served as a 
garter, it made a dress most becoming in their eyes, and gave 
Gibbie an indescribable pleasure from its whiteness, and its 
coolness to his inflamed skin. 

They had just finished clothing him thus, when the goodman 
came home, and the mother’s narration had to be given afresh, 
with Donahs notes explanatory and completive. As the latter re- 
ported the doings of the imagined brownie, and the commo- 
tion they had caused at the Mains and along Daurside, Gib- 
bie’s countenance flashed with pleasure and fun ; and at last 
he broke into such a peal of laughter as had never, for pure 
merriment, been heard before so high on Glashgar. All joined 
involuntarily in the laugh — even the old man who had been 
listening with his grey eyebrows knit, and hanging like bosky 
precipices over the tarns of his deep-set eyes, taking in every 
word, but uttering not one. When at last his wife showed 
him the child’s back, he lifted his two hands, and moved them 
slowly up and down, as in pitiful appeal for man against man 
to the sire of the race. But still he said not a word. As to ut- 
terance of what lay in the deep soul of him, the old man, except 
sometimes to his wife, was nearly as dumb as Gibbie himself. 

They sat down to their homely meal. Simplest things will 
carry the result of honest attention as plainly as more elaborate 
dishes ; and, wdiich it might be well to consider, they will 
carry no more than they are worth : of Janet’s supper it is 
enough to say that it was such as became her heart. In the 
judgment of all her guests, the porridge was such as none 
could make but mother, the milk such as none but mother’s 
cow could yield, the cakes such as she only could bake. 

Gibbie sat in the bed like a king on his throne, gazing on 
his kingdom. For he that loves has, as no one else has. It 
is the divine possession. Picture the delight of the child, in 
his passion for his kind, looking out upon this company of 


REFUGE. 


133 


true hearts, honest faces, human forms — all strong and healthy, 
loving each other, and generous to the taking in of the world’s 
outcast ! Gibbie could not, at that period of his history, have 
invented a heaven more to his mind, and as often as one of 
them turned eyes towards the bed, his face shone up with love 
and merry gratitude, like a better sun. 

It was now almost time for the sons and daughters to go 
down the hill again, and leave the cottage and the blessed old 
parents and the harbored child to the night, the mountain- 
silence, and the living God. The sun had long been down ; but 
far away in the north the faint thin fringe of his light garment was 
still visible, moving with the unseen body of his glory softly 
eastward, dreaming along the horizon, growing fainter and 
fainter as it went, but at the faintest then beginning to revive 
and grow. Of the northern lands in summer, it may be .said 
as of the heaven of heavens, that there is no night there. And 
by and by the moon also would attend the steps of the 
returning children of labor. 

“Noo, lads an’ lasses, afore we hae worship, rin, ilk ane o' 
ye," said the mother, “ an pu' heather to mak a bed to the 
wee man — i' the neuk there, at the heid o’ oors. He'll 
sleep there bonny, an’ no ill 'ill come near 'im." 

She was obeyed instantly. The heather was pulled, and set 
together upright as it grew, only much closer, so that the tops 
made a dense surface, and the many stalks, each weak, a 
strong upbearing whole. They boxed them in below with a 
board or two for the purpose, and bound them together 
above with a blanket over the top, and a white sheet over that 
—a linen sheet it was, and large enough to be doubled, and 
receive Gibbie between its folds. Then another blanket was 
added, and the bed, a perfect one, was ready. The eldest of 
the daughters took Gibbie in her arms, and tenderly care- 
ful over his hurts, lifted him from the old folks' bed, and 
placed him in his own — one more luxurious, for heather makes 
a still better stratum for repose than oat-chafF — and Gibbie 
sank into it with a sigh that was but a smile grown vocal. 

Then Donal, as the youngest, got down the big Bible, and 
having laid it before his father, lighted the rush-pith-wick pro- 
jecting from the beak of the little iron lamp that hung against 
the wall, its shape descended from Roman times. The old 
man put on his spectacles, took the book, and found the pas- 
sage that fell, in continuous process, to that evening. 

Now he was not a very good reader, and, what with blind- 
ness and spectacles, and poor light, would sometimes lose his 
place. But it never troubled him, for he always knew the 


134 


SIR GIBBIE. 


sense of what was coming, and being no idolator of the letter, 
used the word that lirst suggested itself, and so recovered his 
place without pausing. It reminded his sons and daughters 
of the time when he used to tell them Bible stories as they 
crowded about his knees ; and sounding therefore merely like 
the substitution of a more familiar word to assist their com- 
prehension, woke no surprise. And even now, the word 
supplied, being in the vernacular, was rather to the benefit 
than the disadvantage of his hearers. The word of Christ is 
spirit and life, and where the heart is aglow, the tongue will 
follow that spirit and life fearlessly, and will not err. 

On this occasion he was reading of our Lord’s cure of the 
leper ; and having read, ^'■put forth his handf lost his place, 
and went straight on without it, from his memory of the 
facts. 

“He put forth his han’ — an’ grippit him, and said. Aw 
wull — be clean.” 

After the reading followed a prayer, very solemn and de- 
vout. It was then only, when before God, with his wife by 
his side, and his family around him, that the old man became 
articulate. He would scarcely have been so then, and would 
have floundered greatly in the marshes of his mental chaos, but 
for the stepping-stones of certain theological forms and phrases, 
which were of endless service to him in that they helped him 
to utter what in him was far better, and so realize more to him- 
self his own feelings. Those forms and phrases would have 
shocked any devout Christian who had not been brought up 
in the same school ; but they did him little harm, for he s_aw 
only the good that was in them, and indeed did not under- 
stand them save in so far as they worded that lifting up of the 
heart after which he was ever striving. 

By the time the prayer was over, Gibbie was fast asleep 
again. What it all meant he had not an idea ; and the 
sound lulled him — a service often so rendered in lieu of that 
intended. When he woke next, from the aching of his 
stripes, the cottage was dark. The old people were fast 
asleep. A hairy thing lay by his side, which, without the 
least fear, he examined by palpation, and found to be a dog, 
whereupon he fell fast asleep again, if possible happier than 
ever. And while the cottage was thus quiet, the brothers and 
sisters w^ere still tramping along the moonlight paths of Daur- 
side. They had all set out together, but at one point after 
another there had been a parting, and now they were on six 
different roads, each drawing nearer to the labor of the new 
week. 


MORE SCHOOLING. 


135 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

MORE SCHOOLING. 

The first opportunity Donal had, he questioned Fergus as 
to his share in the ill-usage of Gibbie. Fergus treated the 
inquiry as an impertinent interference, and mounted his high 
horse at once. What right had his father’s herd-boy to ques- 
tion him as to his conduct ? He put it so to him and in 
nearly just as m.any words. Thereupon answered Donal — 

‘ ‘ It’s this, ye see, Fergus : ye hae been unco guid to me, 
an’ I’m mair obligatit till ye nor I can say. But it wad be a 
scunnerfu’ thing to tak the len’ o’ buiks frae ye, an’ spiei 
quest’ons at ye ’at I canna mak oot mysel’ an’ syne gang awa 
despisin’ ye i’ my hert for cruelty an’ wrang. What was the 
cratur punished for ? Tell me that. Accordin’ till ye aunt’s 
ain accoont, he had taen naething, an’ had dune naething but 
guid.” 

‘ ‘ Why didn’t he speak up then, and defend himself, and 
not be so damned obstinate.?” returned Fergus. “He 
wouldn’t open his mouth to tell his name, or where he came 
from even. I couldn’t get him to utter a single word. As 
for his punishment, it was by the laird’s orders that Angus 
Mac Pholp took the whip to him. I had nothing to do with 
it.” — Fergus did not consider the punishment he had himself 
given him as worth mentioning — as indeed, except for hones- 
ty’s sake, it was not, beside the other. 

“Weel, I’ll be a man some day, an' Angus ’ll hae to sattle 
wi’ me!” said Donal through his clenched teeth. “Man, 
Fergus ! the cratur’s as dumb’s a worum. I dinna believe 
'at ever he spak a word in ’s life.” 

This cut Fergus to the heart, for he was far from being 
without generosity or pity. How many things a man who is 
not awake to side strenuously with the good in him against 
the evil, who is not on his guard lest himself should mislead 
himself, may do, of which he will one day be bitterly 
ashamed I — a trite remark, it may be, but, reader, that will 
make the thing itself no easier to bear, should you ever come 
to know you have done a thing of the sort. I fear, however, 
from what I know of Fergus afterwards, that he now, instead 
of seeking about to make some amends, turned the strength 


SIR GIBBIE. 


136 

that should have gone in that direction, to the justifying of 
himself 10 himself in what he had done. Anyhow, he was 
far too proud to confess to Donal that he had done wrong — 
too much offended at being rebuked by one he counted so 
immeasuraoly his inferior, to do the right thing his rebuke 
set before him. What did the mighty business matter ! The 
little rascal was nothing but a tramp ; and if he didn’t deserve 
his punishment this time, he had deserved it a hundred times 
without having it, and would ten thousand times again. So 
reasoned Fergus, while the feeling grew upon Donal that the 
cratur was of some superior race — came from some other and 
nobler world. I would remind my reader that Donal was a 
Celt, with a nature open to every fancy of love or awe — one 
of the same breed with the foolish Galatians, and like them 
ready to be bewitched ; but bearing a heart that welcomed 
the light with glad rebound — loved the lovely, nor loved it 
only, but turned towards it with desire to become like it. 
Fergus too was a Celt in the main, but was spoiled by the 
paltry ambition of being distinguished. He was not in love 
with loveliness, but in love with praise. He saw’ not a little 
of what w’as good and noble, and would fain be such, but 
mainly that men might regard him for his goodness and no- 
bility ; hence his practical notion of the good w’as weak, and 
of the noble, paltry. His one desire in doing anything, was 
to be approved of or admired in the same — approved of in 
the opinions he held, in the plans he pursued, in the doc- 
trines he taught ; admired in the poems in wTich he w^ent 
halting after Byron, and in the eloquence w’ith which he 
meant one day to astonish great congregations. There was 
nothing original as yet discoverable in him ; nothing to de- 
liver him from the poor imitative apery in wTich he imagined 
himself a poet. He did possess one invaluable gift — that of 
perceiving and admiring, more than a little, certain forms of 
the beautiful ; but it was rendered merely ridiculous by being 
conjoined w’ith the miserable ambition — poor as that of any 
mountebank emperor — to be himself admired for that admi- 
ration. He mistook also sensibility for faculty, nor perceived 
that it was at best but a probable sign that he might be able 
to do something or other with pleasure, perhaps with success. 
If any one judge it hard that men should be made with ambi- 
tions to whose objects they can never attain, I answer, ambi- 
tion is but the evil shadow of aspiration ; and no man ever 
followed the truth, which is the one path of aspiration, and 
in the end complained that he had been made this way or 
that. Man is made to be that which he is made most capa- 


MORE SCHOOLING. 


^37 


ble of desiring — but it goes without saying that he must de- 
sire the thing itself and not its shadow. Man is of the truth, 
and while he follows a lie, no indication his nature yields will 
hold, except the fear, the discontent, the sickness of soul, 
that tell him he is wrong. If he say “I care not for what 
you call the substance — it is to me the shadow ; I want what 
you call the shadow,'' the only answer is, that, to all eternity, 
he can never have it : a shadow can never be had. 

Ginevra was hardly the same child after the experience of 
that terrible morning. At no time very much at home with 
her father, something had now come between them, to remove 
which all her struggles to love him as before were unavailing. 
The father was too stupid, to unsympathetic, to take note of 
the look of fear that crossed her face if ever he addressed her 
suddenly ; and when she was absorbed in fighting the thoughts 
that would come, he took her constraint for sullenness. 

With a cold spot in his heart where once had dwelt some 
genuine regard for Donal, Fergus went back to college. 
Donal went on herding the cattle, cudgeling Hornie, and 
reading what books he could lay his hands on : there was no 
supply through Fergus any more, alas ! The year before, ere 
he took his leave, he had been careful to see Donal provided 
with at least books for study ; but this time he left him to shift 
for himself. He was small because he was proud, spiteful 
because he was conceited. He would let Donal know what 
it was to have lost his favor ! But Donal did not suffer 
much, except in the loss of the friendship itself. He manag- 
ed to get the loan of a copy of Burns — better meat for a strong 
spirit than the poetry of Byron or even Scott. An innate 
cleanliness of soul rendered the occasional coarseness to him 
harmless, and the mighty torrent of the man’s life, broken by 
occasional pools reflecting the stars ; its headlong hatred of 
hypocrisy and false religion ; its generosity, and struggling 
conscientiousness ; its failure and its repentances, roused 
much in the heart of Donal. Happily the copy he had borrow- 
ed, had in it a tolerable biography ; and that, read along with 
the man's work, enabled him, young as he was, to see some- 
thing of where and how he had failed, and to shadow out to 
himself, not altogether vaguely, the perils to which the great- 
est must be exposed who cannot rule his own spirit, but, 
like a mere child, reels from one mood into another — at the 
will of — what.? 

From reading Burns, Donal learned also not a little of the 
capabilities of his own language ; for, Celt as he was by birth 
and country and mental character, he could not speak the 


1^8 SIR GIBBIE. 

Gaelic : that language, soft as the speech of streams from 
rugged mountains, and wild as that of the wind in the tops of 
fiiMrecs, the language at once of bards and fighting men, had 
so far ebbed from the region, lingering only here and there in 
the hollow pools of old memories, that Donal had never learned 
it ; and the lowland Scotch, an ancient branch of English, dry 
and gnarled, but still flourishing in its old age, had become 
instead, his mother-tongue ; and the man who loves the 
antique speech, or even the mere patois, of his childhood, 
and knows how to use it, possesses therein a certain kind of 
power over the hearts of men, which the most refined and 
j)erfect of languages cannot give, inasmuch as it has travelled 
farther from the original sources of laughter and tears. But 
the old Scottish itself is, alas ! rapidly vanishing before a poor, 
shabby imitation of modern English — itself a weaker language 
in sound, however enriched in words, since the days of Shaks- 
pere, when it was far more like Scotch in its utterance than it 
is now. 

My mother-tongue, how sweet thy tone ! 
tlow near to good allied ! 

Were even my heart of steel or stone, 

Thou wouldst drive out the pride. 

So sings Klaus Groth, in and concerning his own Plattdeutsch 
— so nearly akin to the English. 

To a poet especially is it an inestimable advantage to be 
able to employ such a language for his purposes. Not only 
was It the speech of his childhood, when he saw everything 
with fresh, true eyes, but it is itself a child-speech ; and, the 
child way of saying must always lie nearer the child way of 
seeing, which is the poetic way. Therefore, as the poetic 
faculty was now slowly asserting itself in Donal, it was of 
vast Importance that he should know what the genius of Scot- 
land had been able to do with his homely mother-tongue, for 
through that tongue alone could what poetry he had in him 
have thoroughly fair play, and in turn do its best towards his 
development — which is the first and greatest use of poetry. 
It is a ruinous misjudgment — too contemptible to be assert- 
ed, but not too contemptible to be acted upon, that the end 
of poetry is publication. Its true end is to help first the man 
who makes it along the path to the truth : help for other people 
may or may not be in it ; that, if it become a question at all, 
must be an after one. To the man who has it, the gift is in- 
valuable ; and, in proportion as it helps him to be a better 
man, it is of value to the whole world ; but it may, in itself, 
be so nearly worthless, that the publishing of it would be more 


MORE SCHOOLING. 


139 


for harm than good. Ask any one who has had to perform 
the unenviable duty of editor t© a magazine : he will corrob- 
orate what I say — that the quantity of verse good enough to 
be its own reward, but without the smallest claim to be utter- 
ed to the world, is enormous. 

Not yet, however, had Donal written a single stanza. A 
line, or at most two, would now and then come into his head 
with a buzz, like a wandering honey-bee that had mistaken 
its hive — generally in the shape of a humorous malediction 
on Hornie — but that was all. 

In the meantime Gibbie slept and waked and slept again, 
night after night — with the loveliest days between, at the cot- 
tage on Glashgar. The morning after his arrival, the first 
thing he was aware of was Janet’s face beaming over him, with 
a look in its eye more like worship than benevolence. Her 
husband was gone, and she was about to milk the cow, and 
was anxious lest, while she was away, he should disappear as 
before. But the light that rushed into his eyes was in full 
response to that which kindled the light in hers, and her mis- 
giving vanished ; he could not love her like that and leave 
her. She gave him his breakfast of porridge and milk, and 
went to her cow. 

When she came back she found everything tidy in the cot- 
tage, the floor swept, every dish washed and set aside ; and 
Gibbie was examining an old shoe of Robert’s, to see whether 
he could not mend it. Janet, having therefore leisure, pro- 
ceeded at once with joy to the construction of a garment she 
had been devising for him. The design was simple, and its 
execution easy. Taking a bluewinsey petticoat of her own, 
drawing it in round his waist, and tying it over the chemise 
which was his only garment, she found, as she had expected, 
that its hem reached his feet : she partly divided it up the mid- 
dle, before and behind, and had but to back-stitch two short 
seams, and there was a pair of sailor-like trousers, as tidy as 
comfortable ! Gibbie was delighted with them. True, they 
had no pockets, but then he had nothing to put in pockets, 
and one might come to think of that as an advantage. Gib- 
bie indeed had never had pockets, for the pockets of the gar- 
ments he had had were always worn out before they reached 
him. Then Janet thought about a cap ; but considering him 
a moment critically, and seeing how his hair stood out like 
thatch-eaves round his head, she concluded with herself. 
“There maun be some men as weel’s women fowk. I’m 
thinkin’, whauce hair’s gien them for a coverin,” and betook 
herself instead to her New Testament. 


140 


SIR GIBBIE. 


Gibbie stood by as she read in silence, gazing with delight, 
for he thought it must be a book of ballads like Donal's that she 
was reading. But Janet found his presence, his unresting at- 
titude, and his gaze, discomposing. To worship freely, one 
must be alone, or else with fellow-worshippers. And read- 
ing and worshipping were often so mingled with Janet, as to 
form but one mental consciousness. She looked up there- 
fore from her book, and said — 

“Can ye read, laddie ? ” 

Gibbie shook his head. 

“ Sit ye doon than, an’ I s’ read till ye.” 

Gibbie obeyed more than willingly, expecting to hear some 
ancient Scots’ tale of love or chivalry. Instead it was one of 
those love-awful, glory-sad chapters in the end of the Gospel 
of John, over which hangs the darkest cloud of human sor- 
row, shot through and through with the radiance of light 
eternal, essential, invincible. Whether it was the uncertain 
response to Janet’s tone merely, or to truth too loud to be 
heard, save as a thrill, of some chord in his own spirit, hav- 
ing its one end indeed twisted around an earthly peg, but 
the other looped to a tail-piece far in the unknown — I cannot 
tell ; it may have been that the name now and then recur- 
ring brought to his mind the last words of poor Sambo ; 
anyhow, when Janet looked up, she saw the tears rolling 
down the child's face. At the same time, from the expres- 
sion of his countenance, she judged that his understanding 
had grasped nothing. She turned therefore to the parable of 
the prodigal son, and read it. Even that had not a few words 
and phrases unknown to Gibbie, but he did not fail to catch 
the drift of the perfect story. For had not Gibbie himself had a 
father, to whose bosom he went home every night ? Let but 
love be the interpreter, and what most wretched type will not 
serve the turn for the carriage of profoundest truth ! The 
prodigal’s lowest degradation, Gibbie did not understand ; 
but Janet saw the expression of the boy’s face alter with every 
tone of the tale, through all the gamut between the swine’s 
trough and the arms of the father. Then at last he burst — 
not into tears — Gibbie was not much acquainted with weep- 
ing — but into a laugh of loud triumph. He clapped his 
hands, and in a shiver of ecstasy, stood like a stork upon one 
leg, as if so much of him was all that could be spared for 
this lower world, and screwed himself together. 

Janet was well satisfied with her experiment. Most Scotch 
women, and more than most Scotch men, would have re- 
buked him for laughing, but Janet knew in herself a certain 


MORE SCHOOLING. 


14 I 

tension of delight which nothing served to relieve but a wild 
laughter of holiest gladness ; and never in tears of deepest 
emotion did her heart appeal more directly to its God. It is 
the heart that is not yet sure of its God, that is afraid to laugh 
in his presence. 

Thus had Gibbie his first lesson in the only thing worth learn- 
ing, in that which, to be learned at all, demands the united 
energy of heart and soul and strength and rnind ; and from 
that day he went on learning it. I cannot tell how, or what 
were the slow stages by which his mind budded and swelled 
until it burst into the flower of humanity, the knowledge of 
God. I cannot tell the shape of the door by which the Lord 
entered into that house, and took everlasting possession of it. 
I cannot even tell in what shape he appeared himself in Gib- 
bie’s thoughts — for the Lord can take any shape that is hu- 
man. I only know it was not any unhuman shape of earth- 
ly theology that he bore to Gibbie, when he saw him with 
‘‘that inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude.” For hap- 
pily Janet never suspected how utter was Gibbie’s ignorance. 
She never dreamed that he did not know what was generally 
said about Jesus Christ. She thought he must know as well 
as she outlines of his story, and the purpose of his life and 
death, as commonly taught, and therefore never attempted 
explanations for the sake of w'hich she would probably have 
found herself driven to use terms and phrases which merely 
substitute that which is intelligible because it appeals to what 
in us is low, and is itself both low and false, for that which, 
if unintelligible, is so because of its grandeur and truth. Gib- 
bie’s ideas of God he got all from the mouth of Theology 
himself, the Word of God ; and to the theologian who will 
not be content with his teaching, the disciple of Jesus must 
just turn his back, that his face may be to his Master. 

So, teaching him only that which she loved, not that which 
she had been taught, Janet read to Gibbie of Jesus, talked to 
him of Jesus, dreamed to him about Jesus ; until at length — 
Gibbie did not think to watch, and knew nothing of the 
process by which it came about — his whole soul was full of 
the man, of his doings, of his words, of his thoughts, of his 
life. Jesus Christ was in him — he was possessed by him. 
Almost before he knew, he was trying to fashion his life after 
that of his Master. 

Between the two, it was a sweet teaching, a sweet learning. 
Under Janet, Gibbie was saved the thousand agonies that be- 
fall the conscientious disciple, from the forcing upon him, as 
the thoughts and will of the eternal Father of our spirits, of 


142 


SIR GIBBIE. 


the ill expressed and worse understood experiences, the crude 
conjectures, the vulgar imaginations of would-be teachers of the 
multitude. Containing truth enough to save those of sufficient- 
ly low development to receive such teaching without disgust, it 
contains falsehood enough, but for the Spirit of God, to 
ruin all nobler — I mean all childlike natures, utterly ; and 
many such it has gone far to ruin, driving them even to a 
madness in which they have died. Jesus alone knows the 
Father, and can reveal him. Janet studied only Jesus, and as 
a man only knows his friend, so she, only infinitely better, 
knew her more than friend — her Lord and her God. Do I 
speak of a poor Scotch peasant woman too largely for the 
reader whose test of truth is the notion of probability he 
draws from his own experience ? Let me put one question to 
make the real probability clearer. Should it be any wonder, if 
Christ be indeed the natural Lord of every man, woman, and 
child, that a simple capable nature, laying itself entirely open 
to him and his influences, should understand him ? How 
should he be the Lord of that nature if such a thing were not 
possible, or were at all improbable— nay, if such a thing did 
not necessarily follow ? Among women, was it not always 
to peasant women that heavenly messages came ? See reve- 
lation culminate in Elizabeth and Mary, the mothers of John 
the Baptist and Jesus. Think how much fitter that it should 
be so ; — that they to whom the word of God comes should be 
women bred in the dignity of a natural life, and familiarity 
with the large ways of the earth ; women of simple and few 
wants, without distraction and time for reflection — compelled 
to reflection, indeed, from the enduring presence of an un- 
sullied consciousness ; for wherever there is a humble, thought- 
ful nature, into that nature the divine consciousness, that is, 
the Spirit of God, presses as into fts own place. Holy women 
are to be found everywhere, but the prophetess is not so like- 
ly to be found in the city as in the hill-country. 

Whatever Janet, then, might, perhaps — I do not know — 
have imagined it her duty to say to Gibbie had she surmised 
his ignorance, having long ceased to trouble her own head, 
she has now no inclination to trouble Gibbie’s heart with 
what men call the plan of salvation. It was enough to her 
to find that he followed her Master. Being in the, light she 
understood the light, and had no need of system, either true 
or false, to explain it to her. She lived by the word proceed- 
ing out of the mouth of God. When life begins to speculate 
upon itself, I suspect it has begun to die. And seldom has 
there been a fitter soul, one clearer from evil, from folly, from 


THE SLATE. 


143 


human device — a purer cistern for such water of life as rose 
in the heart of Janet Grant to pour itself into, than the soul 
of Sir Gibbie. But I must not call any true soul a cistern : 
wherever the water of life is received, it sinks and softens and 
hollows, until it reaches, far down, the spring of life there 
also, that comes straight from the eternal hills, and thence- 
forth there is in that soul a well of water springing up into 
everlasting life. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE SLATE. 

From that very next day, then, after he was received into the 
cottage on Glashgar, Gibbie, as a matter of course, took upon 
him the work his hand could find to do, and Janet averred to 
her husband that never had any of her daughters been more 
useful to her. At the same time, however, she insisted that 
Robert should take the boy out with him. She would not 
have him do woman’s work, especially work for which she 
was herself perfectly able. She had not come to her years, 
she said to learn idleset; and the boy would save Robert 
many a weary step among the hills. 

“He canna speyk to the dog,” objected Robert, giving 
utterance to the first difficulty that suggested itself. 

“The dog canna speyk himsel’,” returned Janet, “an’ the 
won’er is he can un’erstan’: wha kens but he may come full 
nigher ane ’at’s speechless like himsel’! Ye gie the cratur 
the chance, an’ I s’ warran’ he’ll mak himsel’ plain to the 
dog. Ye jist try ’im. Tell ye him to tell the dog sae and sae 
an’ see what’ll come o’ ’t.” 

Robert made the experiment, and it proved satisfactory. 
As soon as he had received Robert’s orders, Gibbie claimed 
Oscar’s attention. The dog looked up in his face, noted 
every glance and gesture, and, partly from sympathetic in- 
stinct, that gift lying so near the very essence of life, partly 
from observation of the state of affairs in respect of the sheep, 
divined with certainty what the duty required of him was, and 
was off like a shot. 

“The twa dumb craturs un’erstan’ ane anither better nor I 
un’erstan’ aither o’ them, ” said Robert to his wife when they 
came home. 

And now indeed it was a blessed time for Gibbie. It had 
been pleasant down in the valley, with the cattle and Donal, 


144 


SIR GIBBIE. ^ 


and foul weather sometimes ; but now it was the full glow of 
summer ; the sweet keen air of the mountain bathed him as 
he ran, entered into him, filled him with life like the new wine 
of the kingdom of God, and the whole world rose in its glory 
around him. Surely it is not the outspread sea, however the 
sight of its storms and its laboring ships may enhance the 
sense of safety to the onlooker, but the outspread land of 
peace and plenty, with its nestling houses, its well-stocked 
yards, its cattle feeding in the meadows, and its men and 
horses at labor in the fields, that gives the deepest delight to 
the heart of the poet 1 Gibbie was one of the meek, and in- 
herited the earth. Throned on the mountain, he beheld the 
multiform “goings on of life,” and in love possessed the 
whole. He was of the poet-kind also, and now that he was a 
shepherd, saw everything with shepherd-eyes. One moment, 
to his fancy, the great sun above played the shepherd to the 
world, the winds were the dogs, and the men and women the 
sheep. The next, in higher mood, he would remember the 
good shepherd of whom Janet had read to him, and pat the 
head of the collie that lay beside him : Oscar too was a shep- 
herd and no hireling ; he fed the sheep ; he turned them from 
danger and barrenness ; and he barked well. 

“ Tm the dumb dog ! ” said Gibbie to himself, not knowing 
that he was really a copy in small of the good shepherd; ‘ ‘ but 
maybe there may be mair nor ae gait o’ barkin’.” 

Then what a joy it was to the heaven-born obedience of the 
child, to hearken to every word, watch every look, divine every 
wish of the old man ! Child Hercules could not have waited 
on mighty old Saturn as Gibbie waited on Robert. For he was 
to him the embodiment of all that was reverend and worthy, a 
very gulf of wisdom, a mountain of rectitude. Gibbie was one 
of those few elect natures to whom obedience is a delight — a 
creature so different from the vulgar that they have but one 
tentacle they can reach such with — that of contempt. 

“I jist lo’e the bairn as the verra aipple o’ my ee,” said 
Robert. “ I can scarce consaive a wuss, but there’s the cratur 
wi’ a grip o’ ’t ! He seems to ken what’s risin’ i’ my min’, an’ 
in a moment he’s up like the dog to be ready, an’ luiks at me 
waitin’.” 

Nor was it long before the town-bred child grew to love the 
heavens almost as dearly as the earth. He would gaze and 
gaze at the clouds as they came and went, and watching them 
and the wind, weighing the heat and the cold, and marking 
many indications, knowm some of them perhaps only to him- 
self, understood the signs of the earthly times at length nearly 


THE SLATE. 


145 


as well as an insect or a swallow, and far better than long- 
experienced old Robert. The mountain was Gibbie’s very 
home ; yet to see him far up on it, in the red glow of the set- 
ting sun, with his dog, as obedient as himself, hanging upon 
his every signal, one could have fancied him a shepherd boy 
come down from the plains of heaven to look after a lost lamb. 
Often, when the two old people were in bed and asleep, Gibbie 
would be out watching the moon rise — seated, still as ruined 
god of Egypt, on a stone of the mountain-side, islanded in 
space, nothing alive and visible near him, perhaps not even a 
solitary night-wind blowing and ceasing like the breath of a 
man’s life, and the awfully silent moon sliding up from the 
hollow of a valley below. If there be indeed a one spirit, ever 
awake and aware, should it be hard to believe that that spirit 
should then hold common thought with a little spirit of its 
own ? If the nightly mountain was the prayer-closet of Him 
who said he would be with his disciples to the end of the 
world, can it be folly to think he would hold talk with such a 
child, alone under the heaven, in the presence of the father 
of both ? Gibbie never thought about himself, therefore was 
there wide' room for the entrance of the spirit. Does the ques- 
tioning thought arise to any reader : How could a man be 
conscious of bliss without the thought of himself.? I answer 
the doubt : When a man turns to look at himself, that momem 
the glow of the loftiest bliss begins to fade : the pulsing fire- 
flies throb paler in the passionate night ; an unseen vapor 
steams up from the marsh and dims the star-crowded sky and 
the azure sea ; and the next moment the very bliss itself looks 
as if it had never been more than a phosphorescent gleam — 
the summer lightning of the brain. For then the man sees 
himself but in his own dim mirror, whereas ere he turned to 
look in that, he knew himself in the absolute clarity of God’s 
present thought out-bodying him. The shoots of glad con- 
sciousness that come to the obedient man, surpass in bliss 
whole days and years of such ravined rapture as he gains 
whose weariness is ever spurring the sides of his intent towards 
the ever retreating goal of his desires. I am a traitor even to 
myself if I would live without my life. 

But I withhold my pen ; for vain were the fancy, by treatise 
or sermon, or poem, or tale, to persuade a man to forget himself. 
He cannot if he would. Sooner will he forget the presence of 
a raging tooth. There is no forgetting of ourselves but in the 
finding of our deeper, our true self — God’s idea of us when he 
devised us — the Christ in us. Nothing but that self can dis- 
place the false, greedy, whining self, of which most of us are 


146 


SIR GIBBIE. 


SO fond and proud. And that self no man can find for him- 
self: seeing of himself he does not even know what to search 
for. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power 
to become the sons of God.” 

Then there was the delight, fresh every week, of the Saturday 
gathering of the brothers and sisters, whom Gibbie could hardly 
have loved more, had they been of his own immediate kin. 
Dearest of all was Donal, whose greeting — “ Weel, cratur,” 
was heavenly in Gibbie’s ears. Donal would have had him 
go down and spend a day, every now and then, with him and 
the nowt as in old times — so soon the times grow old to the 
young ! — but Janet w'ould not hear of it, until the foolish tale 
of the brownie should have quite blown over. 

“Eh, but I wuss,” she added, as she said so, “I cut win 
at something aboot his fowk, or aiven wEaur he cam frae, or 
what they ca’d him ! Never ae word has the cratur spoken ! ” 

“Ye sud learn him to read, mither,” said Donal. 

“ Hoo wad I du that, laddie? I wad hae to learn him to 
speyk first,” returned Janet. 

“Lat him come doon to me, an’ Ell try my han’,” said 
Donal. 

Janet, notwithstanding, persisted in her refusal — for the 
present. By Donal s words set thinking of the matter, how- 
ever, she now pondered the question day after day, how she 
might teach him to read ; and at last the idea dawned upon 
her to substitute writing for speech. 

She took the Shorter Catechism, which, in those days, had 
always an alphabet as janitor to the gates of its mysteries — 
who, with the catechism as a consequence even dimly fore- 
boded, would even have learned it ? — and showed Gibbie the 
letters, naming each several times, and going over them re- 
peatedly. Then she gave him Donal’s school-slate, with a 
sklet-pike, and said, “Noo, mak a muckle A, cratur.” 

Gibbie did so, and well too ; she found that already he 
knew about half the letters. 

He ’s no fule ! ” she said to herself in triumph. 

The other half soon followed ; and she then began to show 
him words — not in the catechism, but in the New Testament. 
Having told him whaf any word was, and led him to consider 
the letters composing it, she would desire him to make it on 
the slate, and he would do so with tolerable accuracy : she 
was not very severe about the spelling, if only it was plain he 
knew the word. Ere long he began to devise short ways or 
making the letters, and soon wrote with remarkable facility in 
a character modified from the printed letters. When at length 


THE SLATE. 


147 


Janet saw him take the book by himself, and sit pondering 
over it, she had not a doubt he was understanding it, and her 
heart leapt for joy. He had to ask her a good many words 
at first, and often the meaning of one and another ; but he 
seldom asked a question twice ; and as his understanding was 
far ahead of his reading, he was able to test a conjectured 
meaning by the sense or nonsense it made of the passage. 

One day she turned him to the paraphrases.* At once, to 
his astonishment, he found there, all silent, yet still the same 
delight which Donal used to divide to him from the book of 
balla7its. His joy was unbounded. He jumped from his 
seat ; he danced, and laughed, and finally stood upon one 
leg : no other mode of expression but this, the expression of 
utter failure to express, was of avail to the relief of his 
feeling. 

One day, a few weeks after Gibbie had begun to read by 
himself, Janet became aware that he was sitting on his stool, 
in what had come to be called the craturs corner, more than 
usually absorbed in some attempt with slate and pencil — now 
ceasing, lost in thought, and now commencing anew. She 
went near and peeped over his shoulder. At the top of the 
slate he had written the word give, then the word giving, and 
below them, gib, then gibing ; upon these followed gib again, 
and he was now plainly meditating something further. Sud- 
denly he seemed to find what he wanted, for in haste, almost 
as if he feared it might escape him, he added a^, making the 
word giby — then first lifted his head, and looked round, evi- 
dently seeking her. She laid her hand on his head. He 
jumped up with one of his most radiant smiles, and holding 
out the slate to her, pointed with his pencil to the word, he 
had just completed. She did not know it for a word, but 
sounded it as it seemed to stand, making the g soft, as I dare- 
say some of my readers, not recognizing in Gibbie the diminu- 
tive of Gilbert, may have treated its more accurate form. He 
shook his head sharply, and laid the point of his pencil upon 
the g of the give written above. Janet had been his teacher 
too long not to see what he meant, and immediately pro- 
nounced the word as he would have it. Upon this he began 
a wild dance, but sobering suddenly, sat down, and was in- 
stantly again absorbed in further attempt. It lasted so long 
that Janet resumed her previous household occupation. At 
length he rose, and with thoughtful, doubtful contemplation 
of what he had , done, brought her the slate. There, under 

♦Metrical paraphrases of passages of Scripture, always to be found at 
the end of the Bibles printed .for Scotland. 


148 


SIR GIBBIE. 


the fore-gone success, he had written the words galatians and 
breathy and under them, galbreath. She read them all, and 
at the last, which, witnessing to his success she pronounced 
to his satisfaction, he began another dance, which again he 
ended abruptly, to draw her attention once more to the slate. 
He pointed to the giby first, and the galbreath next, and she 
read them together. This time he did not dance, but seemed 
waiting some result. Upon Janet the idea was dawning that 
he meant himself, but she was thrown out by the cognomen's 
correspondence with that of the laird, which suggested that 
the boy had been merely attempting the name of the great 
man of the district. With this in her mind, and doubtfully 
feeling her way, she essayed the tentative of setting him right 
in the Christian name, and said: Thomas — Thomas Gal- 
braith." Gibbie shook his head as before, and again resumed 
his seat. Presently he brought her the slate, with all the rest 
rubbed out, and these words standing alone — sir giby gal- 
breath. Janet read them aloud, whereupon Gibbie began 
stabbing his forehead with the point of his slate-pencil, and 
dancing once more in triumph : he had, he hoped, for the 
first time in his life, conveyed, a fact through words. 

“That's what they ca' ye, is’t?"said Janet, looking 
motherly at him : “Sir Gibbie Galbraith ? " 

Gibbie nodded vehemently. 

“It’ll be some nickname the bairns haegienhim,” said 
Janet to herself, but continued to gaze at him, in question- 
ing doubt of her own solution. She could not recall having 
ever heard of a Sir in the family ; but ghosts of things for- 
gotten kept rising formless and thin in the sky of her mem- 
ory : had she never heard of a Sir Somebody Galbraith some- 
where ? And still she stared at the child, trying to grasp 
what she could not even see. By this time Gibbie was stand- 
ing quite still, staring at her in return : he could not think 
what made her stare so at him. 

“ Wha ca'd ye that ?" said Janet at length, pointing to the 
slate. 

Gibbie, took the slate, dropped upon his seat, and after 
considerable cogitation and effort, brought her the words, 
gibyse fapher. Janet for a moment w'as puzzled, but when 
she thought of correcting the p with a /, Gibbie entirely ap- 
proved. 

‘ ‘ What was yer father, cratur ? " she asked. 

Gibbie, after a longer pause, and more evident labor than 
hitherto, brought her the enigmatical word, asootr, which, 
the Sir running about in her head, quite defeated Janet 


RUMORS. 


149 


Perceiving his failure, he jumped upon a chair, and reaching 
after one of Robert’s Sunday shoes on the crap o' the wa , the 
natural shelf running all round the cottage, formed by the 
top of the wall where the rafters rested , caught hold of it, 
tumbled with it upon his creepie, took it between his knees, 
and began a pantomime of the making or mending of the 
same with such verisimilitude of imitation, that it was clear 
to Janet he must have been familiar with the processes col- 
lectively called shoemaking ; and therewith she recognized 
the word on the slate — a sutor. She smiled to herself at the 
association of name and trade, and concluded that the 
Sir at least was a nickname. And yet — and yet — whether 
from the presence of some rudiment of an old memory, or 
from something about the boy that belonged to a higher style 
than his present showing, her mind kept swaying in an un- 
certainty whose very object eluded her. 

“ What is ’t yer wull ’at we ca’ ye, than, cratur’? ” she asked 
anxious to meet the child’s own idea of himself. 

He pointed to the giby. 

‘‘Weel, Gibbie,” responded Janet, — and at the word, now 
for the first time addressed by her to himself, he began danc-, 
ing more wildly than ever, and ended with standing motion- 
less on one leg : now first and at last he was fully recognized 
for what he was ! — “Weel, Gibbie, I s’ ca’ ye what ye think 
fit,” said Janet. ‘^An’ noo gang yer wa’s, Gibbie, an’ see 
at Crummie’s no ower far oot o’ sicht. ” 

From that hour Gibbie had his name from the whole fami- 
ly — his Christian name only, however, Robert and Janet hav- 
ing agreed it would be wise to avoid whatever might possibly 
bring the boy again under the notice of the laird. The latter 
half of his name they laid aside for him, as parents do a dan- 
gerous or over-valuable gift to a child. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

RUMORS. 

Almost from the first moment of his being domiciled on 
Glashgar, what with the good food, the fine exercise, the ex- 
quisite air, and his great happiness, Gibbie began to grow ; 
and he took to growing so fast that his legs soon shot far out 
of his winsey garment. But, of all places, that was a small 


SIR GIBBIE. 


150 

matter in Gormgarnet, where the kilt was as common as trou- 
sers. His wiry limbs grew larger without losing their firmness 
or elasticity ; his chest, the effort in running up hill constantly 
alternated with the relief of running down, rapidly expanded, 
and his lungs grew hardy as well as powerful ; till he became 
at length such in wind and muscle, that he could run down 
a wayward sheep almost as well as Oscar. And his nerve grew 
also with his body and strength, till his coolness and courage 
were splendid. Never, when the tide of his affairs ran most 
in the shallows, had Gibbie had much acquaintance with fears, 
but now he had forgotten the taste of them, and would have 
encountered a wild highland bull alone on the mountains, as 
readily as tie Crummie up in her byre. 

One afternoon, Donal, having got a half-holiday, by the 
help of a friend and the favor of Mistress Jean, came home to 
see his mother, and having greeted her, set out to find Gibbie. 
He had gone a long way, looking and calling without success, 
and had come in sight of a certain tiny loch, or tarn, that 
filled a hollow of the mountain. It was called the Deid Pot ; 
and the old awe, amounting nearly to terror, with which in his 
childhood he had regarded it, returned upon him, the mo- 
ment he saw the dark gleam of it, nearly as strong as evef 
— an awe indescribable, arising from mingled feelings ol 
depth, and darkness, and lateral recesses and unknown serpent- 
like fishes. The pot, though small in surface, was truly of un- 
known depth and had elements of dread about it telling upon far 
less active imaginations than Donaf’s. While he stood gazing at 
it, almost afraid to go nearer, a great splash that echoed from the 
steep rocks surrounding it, brought his heart into his mouth, 
and immediately followed a loud barking, in which he recog- 
nized the voice of Oscar. Before he had well begun to think 
what it could mean, Gibbie appeared on the opposite side of the 
loch, high above its level, on the top of the rocks, forming it? 
basin. He began instantly a rapid descent towards the water, 
where the rocks were so steep, and the footing so precarious, 
that Oscar wisely remained at the top, nor attempted to follow 
him. Presently the dog caught sight of Donal, where he stood 
on a lower level, whence the water was comparatively easy of 
access, and starting off at full speed, joined him, with much 
demonstration of welcome. But he received little notice from 
Donal,- whose gaze was fixed, with much wonder and more 
fear, on the descending Gibbie. Some twenty feet from the 
surface of the loch, he reached a point, whence clearly, in 
Donafs judgment, there was no possibility of farther descent. 
But Donal was never more mistaken ; for that instant Gibbie 


RUMORS. 


I5I 

flashed from the face of the rock head foremost, like a fish- 
ing-bird, into the lake. Donal gave a cry, and ran to the 
edge of the water, accompanied by Oscar, who, all the time, 
had showed no anxiety, but had stood wagging his tail, and ut- 
tering now and then a little half-disappointed whine ; neither 
now were his motions as he ran other than those of frolic and 
expectancy. When they reached the loch, there was Gibbie 
already but a few yards from the only possible landing-place, 
swimming with one hand, while in the other arm he held a 
baby-lamb, its head lying quite still on his shoulder : it had 
been stunned by the fall, but might come round again. Then 
first Donal began to perceive that the cratur” was growing 
an athlete. When he landed, he gave Donal a merry laugh 
of welcome, but without stopping flew up the hill to take the 
lamb to its mother. Fresh from the icy water, he ran so fast 
that it was all Donal could do to keep up with him. 

The Deid Pot, then, taught Gibbie what swimming it could’, 
which was not much, and what diving it could, which was 
more ; but the nights of the following summer, when every- 
body on mountain and valley were asleep, and the moon 
shone, he would often go down to the Daur, and throwing 
himself into its deepest reaches, spend hours in lonely sport 
with water and wind and moon. He had by that time learned 
things knowing which a man can never be lonesome. 

The few goats on the mountain were for a time very inimi- 
cal to him. So often did they butt him over, causing him 
sometimes severe bruises, that at last he resolved to try con- 
clusions with them ; and when next a goat made a rush at 
him, he seized him by the horns and wrestled with him 
mightily. This exercise once begun, he provoked engage- 
ments, until his strength and aptitude were such and so well 
known, that not a billy-goat on Glashgar would have to do 
with him. But when he saw that every one of them ran at 
his approach, Gibbie who could not bear to be in discord 
with any creature, changed his behavior towards them, and! 
took equal pains to reconcile them to him — nor rested before' 
he had entirely succeeded. 

Every time Donal came home, he would bring some book 
of verse with him, and, leading Gibbie to some hollow, shady 
or sheltered as the time required, would there read to him 
ballads, or songs, or verse more stately, as mood or provision 
might suggest. The music, the melody and the cadence and 
the harmony, the tone and the rhythm and the time and the 
rhyme, instead of growing common to him, rejoiced Gibbie 
more and more every feast, and with ever-growing reverence 


152 


SIR GIBBIE. 


he looked up to Donal as a mighty master-magician. But if 
Donal could have looked down into Gibbie’s bosom, he 
would have seen something there beyond his comprehension. 
For Gibbie was already in the kingdom of heaven, and Donal 
would have to suffer, before he would begin even to look 
about for the door by which a man may enter into it. 

I wonder how much Gibbie was indebted to his constrained 
silence during all these years. That he lost by it, no one will 
doubt ; that he gained also, a few will admit : though I 
should find it hard to say what and how great, I cannot doubt 
it bore an important part in the fostering of such thoughts and 
feelings and actions as were beyond the vision of Donal, 
poet as he was growing to be. While Donal read, rejoicing 
in the music both of sound and sense, Gibbie was doing some- 
thing besides : he was listening with the same ears, and trying to 
see with the same eyes, which he brought to bear upon the 
things Janet taught him out of the book. Already those first 
weekly issues, lately commenced, of a popular literature had 
penetrated into the mountains of Gormgarnet ; but whether 
Donal read Blind Harry from a thumbed old modern edition, 
or some new tale or neat poem from the Edinburgh press, 
Gibbie was always placing what he heard by the side, as it 
were, of what he knew ; asking himself, in this case and that, 
what Jesus Christ would have done, or what he would require 
of a disciple. There must be one right way he argued. 
Sometimes his innocence failed to see that no disciple of the 
Son of Man could, save by fearful failure, be in such circum- 
stances as the tale or ballad represented. But, whether suc- 
cessful or not in the individual inquiry, the boy’s mind and 
heart and spirit, in this silent unembarrassed brooding, as 
energetic as it was peaceful, expanded upwards when it failed 
to widen, and the widening would come after. Gifted from 
the first of his being, with such a rare drawing to his kind, he 
saw his utmost affection dwarfed by the words and deeds of 
Jesus — beheld more and more grand the requirements made 
of a man who would love his fellows as Christ loved them. 
When he sank foiled from any endeavor to understand how a 
man was to behave in certain circumstances, these or those, 
he always took refuge in doing something — and doing it, bet- 
ter than before ; leaped the more eagerly if Robert call him, 
spoke the more gently to Oscar, turned the sheep more care- 
ful not to scare them — as if by instinct he perceived that the 
only hope of understanding lies in doing. He would cleave 
to the skirt when the hand seemed withdrawn ; he would run 
to do thethii^g he had learned yesterday, when as yet he could 


RUMORS. 


153 


find no answer to the question of to-day. Thus, as the weeks 
of solitude and love and thought and obedience glided by, 
the reality of Christ grew upon him, till he saw the very rocks 
and heather and the faces of the sheep like him, and felt his 
presence everywhere, and ever coming nearer. Nor did his 
imagination aid only a little in the growth of his being. He 
would dream walking dreams about Jesus, gloriously child- 
like. He fancied he came down every now and then to see 
how things were going in the lower part of his kingdom ; and 
that when he did so, he made use of Glashgar and its rocks 
for his stair, coming down its granite scale in the morning, 
and again, when he had ended his visit, going up in the even- 
ing by the same steps. Then high and fast would his heart 
beat at the thought that some day he might come upon his 
path just when he had passed, see the heather lifting its head 
from the trail of his garment, or more slowly out of the prints 
left by his feet, as he walked up the stairs of heaven, going 
back to his Father. Sometimes, when a sheep stopped feed- 
ing and looked up suddenly, he would fancy that Jesus had 
laid his hand on its head, and was now telling it that it must 
not mind being killed ; for he had been killed, and it was all 
right. 

Although he could read the New Testament for himself 
now, he always preferred making acquaintance with any new 
portion of it first from the mouth of Janet. Her voice made 
the word more of a word to him. But the next time he read, 
it was sure to be what she had then read. She was his 
priestess ; the opening of her Bible was the opening of a 
window in heaven ; her cottage was the porter’s lodge to the 
temple ; his very sheep were feeding on the temple-stairs. 
Smile at such fancies if you will, but think also whether they 
may not be within sight of the greatest of facts. Of all teach- 
ings that which presents a far distant God is the nearest to 
absurdity. Either there is none, or he is nearer to every one 
of us than our nearest consciousness of self. An unapproach- 
able divinity is the veriest of monsters, the most horrible of 
human imaginations. 

When the winter came with its frost and snow, Gi’bbie saved 
Robert much suffering. At first Robert was unwilling to let 
him go out alone in stormy weather ; but Janet believed that 
the child doing the old man’s work would be specially pro- 
tected. All through the hard time, therefore, Gibbie went 
and came, and no evil befell him. Neither did he suffer 
from the cold ; for, a sheep having ' died towards the end of 
the first autumn, Robert, in view of Gibbie’s coming neces- 


154 


SIR GIBBIE. 


sity, had begged of his master the skin, and dressed it with 
the wool upon it ; and of this, between the three of them, 
they made a coat for him ; so that he roamed the hill like a 
savage, in a garment of skin. 

It became, of course, before very long, well known about 
the country that Mr. Duff’s crofters upon Glashar had taken 
in and were bringing up a foundling — some said an innocent, 
some said a wild boy — who helped Robert with his sheep, 
and Janet with her cow, but could not speak a word of either 
Gaelic or English. By and by, strange stories came to be 
told of his exploits, representing him as gifted with bodily 
powers as much surpassing the common, as his mental facul- 
ties were assumed to be under the ordinary standard. The 
rumor concerning him swelled as well as spread, mainly from 
the love of the marvellous common in the region, I suppose, 
until, towards the end of his second year on Glashar, the 
notion of Gibbie in the imaginations of the children of Daur- 
side, was that of an almost supernatural being, who had 
dwelt upon, or rather who had haunted, Glashgar from time 
immemorial, and of whom they had been hearing all their 
lives ; and although they had never heard anything bad of 
him — that he was wild, that he wore a hairy skin, that he could 
do more than any other boy dared atttempt, that he was dumb, 
and that yet (for this also was said) sheep and dogs and cat- 
tle, and even the wild creatures of the mountain, could un- 
derstand him perfectly — these statements w'ere more than 
enough, acting on the suspicion and fear belonging to the 
savage in their own bosoms, to envelope the idea of him in a 
mist of dread, deepening to such horror in the case of the 
more timid and imaginative of them, that when the twilight 
began to gather about the cottages and farmhouses, the very 
mention of “ the beast-loon o’ Glasghar” was enough, and 
that for miles up and down the river, to send many of the 
children scouring like startled hares into the house. Gibbie, 
in his atmosphere of human grace and tenderness, little 
thought what clouds of foolish fancies, rising from the valleys 
below, had, by their distorting vapors, made of him an object 
of terror to those whom at the very first sight he would have 
loved and served. Amongst these, perhaps the most afraid 
of him were the children of the gamekeeper, for they lived on 
the very foot of the haunted hill, near the bridge and gate of 
Glashruach ; and the laird himself happened one day to be 
witness of their fear. He inquired the cause, and yet again 
was his enlightened soul vexed by the persistency with which 
the shadows of superstition still hung M)out his lands. Had 


RUMORS. 


155 


he been half as philosophical as he fancied himself, he might 
have seen that there was not necessarily a single film of super- 
stition involved in the belief that a savage roamed a moun- 
tain — which was all that Mistress Mac Pholp, depriving the 
rumor of its ticher coloring, ventured to impart as the cause 
of her children’s perturbation ; but anything a hair’s-breadth 
out of the common, was a thing hated of Thomas Galbraith’s 
soul, and whatever another believed which he did not choose 
to believe, he set down at once as superstition. He held 
therefore immediate communication with his gamekeeper on 
the subject, who in his turn was scandalized that his chil- 
dren should have thus proved themselves unworthy of the 
privileges of their position, and given annoyance to the lib- 
eral soul of their master, and took care that both they and 
his wife should suffer in consequence. The expression of the 
man’s face as he listened to the laird’s complaint, would not 
have been a pleasant sight to any lover of Gibbie ; but it had 
not occurred either to master or man that the offensive being 
whose doubtful existence caused the scandal, was the same 
towards whom they had once been guilty of such brutality ; 
nor would their knowledge of the fact have been favorable to 
Gibbie. The same afternoon, the laird questioned his tenant 
of the Mains concerning his cottars ; and was assured that 
better or more respectable people were not in all the region 
of Gormgarnet. 

When Robert became aware, chiefly through the represen- 
tations of his wife and Donal, of Gibbie’s gifts of other kinds 
than those revealed to himself by his good shepherding, he 
began to turn it over in his mind, and by and by referred the 
question to his wife whether they ought not to send the boy 
to school, that he might learn the things he was so much 
more than ordinarily capable of learning. Janet would give 
no immediate opinion. She must think, she said ; and she 
took three days to turn the matter over in her mind. Her 
questioning cogitation was to this effect : ‘‘What need has a 
man to know anything but what the New Testament teaches 
him ? Life was little to me before I began to understand its 
good news ; now it is more than good — it is grand. But 
then, man is to live by every word that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of God ; and everything came out of his mouth, when 
he said. Let there be this, and Let there be that. Whatever 
is true is his making, and the more we know of it the better. 
Besides, how much less of the New Testament would I under- 
stand now, if it were not for things I had gone through and 
learned before ! ” 


156 


SIR GIBBIE. 


“Ay, Robert,” she answered, without preface, the third 
day, “I’m thinkin there’s a heap o’ things, gien I hed them, 

’at wad help me to ken what the Maister spak til. It wad be 
a sin no to lat the laddie learn. But wha’ll take the trible 
needfu’ to the teamin’ o’ a puir dummie.?” 

“Lat him gang doon to the Mains, an’ herd wi’ Donal,” 
answered Robert. “ He kens a hantle mair nor you or me 
or Gibbie aither ; an’ whan he’s learnt a’ ’at Donal can shaw 
him it’ll be time to think what neist.” 

“ Well, ” answered Janet, “nane can say but that’s sense, 
Robert ; an’ though I’m laith, for your sake mair nor my ain, 
to lat the laddie gang, let him gang to Donal. I houp, atween 
the twa, they winna lat the nowt amo’ the corn.” 

“The corn’s maist cuttit noo,” replied Robert; “an’ for 
the maitter o’ that, twa guid consciences winna blaw ane 
anither oot. — But he needna gang ilka day. He can gie ae 
day to the learnin’, an’ the neist to thinkin’ aboot it amo’ the 
sheep. An’ ony day ’at ye want to keep him, ye can keep 
him ; for it winna be as gien he gaed to the schuil.” 

Gibbie was delighted with the proposal. 

“Only,” said Robert, in final warning, “ dinna ye lat them 
tak ye, Gibbie, an’ score yer back again, my cratur ; an’ dinna 
ye answer naebody, whan they speir what ye’re ca’d, onything 
mair nor jist Gibbie 

The boy laughed and nodded, and, as Janet said, the 
bairn’s nick was guid’s the best man’s word. 

Now came a happy time for the two boys. Donal began 
at once to teach Gibbie Euclid and arithmetic. When they 
had had enough of that for a day, he read Scottish history to 
him ; and when they had done what seemed their duty by 
that, then came the best of the feast — whatever tales or poetry 
Donal had laid his hands upon. 

Somewhere about this time it was that he first got hold of 
a copy of the Paradise Lost. He found that he could not 
make much of it. But he found also that, as before with the 
ballads, when he read from it aloud to Gibbie, his mere listen- * 
ing presence sent back a spiritual echo that helped him to the 
meaning ; and when neither of them understood it, the grand 
organ roll of it, losing nothing in the Scotch voweling, de- 
lighted them both. 

Once they were startled by seeing the gamekeeper enter the 
field. The moment he saw him, Gibbie laid himself flat on 
the ground, but ready to spring to his feet and run. The 
man, however, did not come near them. 


THE GAMEKEEPER. 


157 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE GAMEKEEPER. 

The second winter came, and with the first frost Gibbie re- 
sumed his sheepskin coat and the brogues and leggings which 
he had made for himself of deer-hide tanned with the hair. 
It pleased the two old people to see him so warmly clad. 
It pleased them also that, thus dressed, he always reminded 
them of some sacred personage undetermined — Jacob, or 
John the Baptist, or the man who went to meet the lion and 
be^ killed by him — in Robert’s big Bible, that is, in one or 
other of the woodcuts of the same. Very soon the stories 
about him were all stirred up afresh, and new rumors added. 
This one and that of the children declared they had caught 
sight of the beast-loon, running about the rocks like a goat ; 
and one day a boy of Angus’s own, who had been a good way 
up the mountain, came home nearly dead with terror, saying 
the beast-loon had chased him a long way. He did not add 
that he had been throwing stones at the sheep, not perceiving 
any one in charge of them. So, one fine morning in Decem- 
ber, having nothing particular to attend to, Angus shouldered 
his double-barrelled gun, and set out for a walk over Glash- 
gar, in the hope of coming upon the savage that terrified the 
children. He must be off. That was settled. Where An- 
gus was in authority, the outlandish was not to be suffered. 
The sun shone bright, and a keen wind was blowing. 

About noon he came in sight of a few sheep, in a sheltered 
spot, where were little patches of coarse grass among the 
heather. On a stone, a few yards above them, sat Gibbie, 
not reading, as he would be half the time now, but busied 
with a Pan’s-pipes — which, under Donal’s direction, he had 
made for himself — drawing from them experimental sounds, 
and feeling after the possibility of a melody. He was so 
much occupied that he did not see Angus approach, who now 
stood for a moment or two regarding him. He was hirsute 
as Esau, his head crowned with its own plentiful crop — even 
in winter he wore no cap — his body covered with the wool of 
the sheep, and his legs and feet with the hide of the deer — the 
hair as in nature, outward. The deer-skin Angus knew for 
what it was from afar, and concluding it the spoil of the only 


158 


SIR GIBBIE. 


crime of which he recognized the enormity, whereas it was 
in truth part of a skin he had himself sold to a saddler in the 
next village, to make sporrans of, boiled over with wrath, and 
strode nearer, grinding his teeth. Gibbie looked up, knew 
him, and starting to his feet, turned to the hill. Angus, lev- 
elling his gun, shouted to him to stop, but Gibbie only ran 
the harder, nor once looked round. Idiotic with rage, An- 
gus fired. One of his barrels w'as loaded with shot, the other 
with ball : meaning to use the shot barrel, he pulled the 
wrong trigger, and liberated the bullet. It went through the 
calf of Gibbie’s right leg, and he fell. It had, however, 
passed between two muscles without injuring either greatly, 
and had severed no artery. The next moment he was on his 
feet again and running, nor did he yet feel pain. Happily he 
was not very far from home, and he made for it as fast as he 
could — preceded by Oscar, who, having once by accident 
been shot himself, had a mortal terror of guns. Maimed as 
Gibbie was, he could yet run a good deal faster up the hill 
than the rascal who followed him. But long before he reached 
the cottage, the pain had arrived, and the nearer he got to it 
the worse it grew. In spite of the anguish, however, he held 
on with determination ; to be seized by Angus and dragged 
down to Glashruach, would be far worse. 

Robert Grant was at home that day suffering from rheum- 
atism. He was seated in the ingle-neuk with his pipe in 
his mouth, and Janet was just taking the potatoes for their 
dinner off the fire, when the door flew open, and in stumbled 
Gibbie, and fell on the floor. The old man threw his pipe 
from him, and rose trembling, but Janet was before him. She 
dropt down on her knees beside the boy, and put her arm 
under his head. He was white and motionless. 

“Eh, Robert Grant ! ” she cried, “ he’s bleedin,” 

The same moment they heard quick yet heavy steps ap- 
proaching. At once Robert divined the truth, and a great 
wrath banished rheumatism and age together. Like a boy he 
sprang to the crap o' the wa' whence his yet powerful 
hand came back armed with a huge rusty old broad-sword that 
had seen service in its day. Two or three fierce tugs at the 
hilt proving the blade immovable in the sheath, and the steps 
being now almost at the door, he clubbed the weapon, 
grasping it by the sheathed blade, and holding it with the 
edge downward, so that the blow he meant to deal should fall 
from the round of the basket hilt. As he heaved it aloft, the 
gray old shepherd seemed inspired by the god of battles ; the 
rage of a hundred ancestors was welling up in his peaceful 


THE GAMEKEEPER. 


159 


breast. His red eye flashed, and the few hairs that were left 
hiir. stood erect on his head like the mane of a roused lion. 
Ere Angus had his second foot over the threshold, down 
came the helmet-like hilt with a dull crash on his head, and 
he staggered against the wall. 

^'Tak ye that, Angus Mac Pholp ! ” panted Robert through 
his clenched teeth, following the blow with another from his 
fist, that prostrated the enemy. Again he heaved his weapon, 
and standing over him where he lay, more than half-stunned, 
said in a hoarse voice : 

“By the great God my maker, Angus Mac Pholp, gien ye 
seek to rise, Pll come doon on ye again as ye lie ! — Here, 
Oscar ! — He’s no ane to hand ony fair play wi’, mair nor a 
brute beast. — Watch him, Oscar, and tak him by the thro’t 
gien he muv a finger.” 

The gun had dropped from Angus’s hand, and Robert, 
keeping his eye on him. secured it. 

“ She’s lodd,” muttered Angus. 

“Lie still than,” returned Robert, pointing the weapon at 
his head. 

“ It’ll be murder,” said Angus, and made a movement to 
lay hold of the barrel. 

“ Hand him doon, Oscar,” cried Robert. The dog’s paws 
were instantly on his chest, and his teeth grinning within 
an inch of his face. Angus vowed in his heart he would 
kill the beast on the first chance. “It wad be but blude for 
blude, Angus Mac Pholp,” he went on. “Yer hoor’s come, 
my man. That bairn’s is no the first blude o’ man ye hae shed, 
an’ it’s time the Scripture was fulfillt, an’ the han’ o’ man shed 
yours. ” 

“Ye’re no gauin to kill me, Rob Grant?” growled the fel- 
low in growing fright. 

“I’m gauin to see whether the shirra wdnna be perswaudit 
to hang ye,” answered the shepherd. “ This maun be putten 
a stap till. — Quaiet ! or I’ll brain ye, an’ save him the trouble. 
— Here, Janet, fess yer pot o’ pitawtas. I’m gauin to toom the 
man’s gun. Gien he daur to muv, jist gie him the haill bilin’, 
bree an a’, i’ the ill face o’ ’m ; gien ye lat him up he’ll kill’s a’; 
only tak care an’ hand aff o’ the dog, puir fallow ! — I wad lay 
tha stock o’ yer murderin gun i’ the fire gien ’twarna ’at I 
reckon it’s the laird’s an’ no yours. Ye’re no fit to be trustit 
wi’ a gun. ' Ye’re waur nor a weyver.” 

So saying he carried the weapon to the door, and in ter- 
ror lest he might, through wrath or the pressure of dire neces- 


i6o 


SIR GIBBIE. 


sity, use it against his foe, emptied its second barrel into the 
earth, and leaned it up against the wall outside. 

Janet obeyed her husband so far as to stand over Angus 
with the potatoe-pot : how far she would have carried her 
obedience had he attempted to rise may remain a question. 
Doubtless a brave man doing his duty would have scorned to 
yield himself thus ; but right and wrong had met face to face, 
and the wrong had a righteous traitor in his citadel. 

When Robert returned and relieved her guard, Janet went 
back to Gibbie, whom she had drawn towards the fire. He 
lay almost insensible, but in vain Janet attempted to get a 
teaspoonful of whisky between his lips. For as he grew older, 
his horror of it increased ; and now, even when he was faint 
and but half conscious, his physical nature seemed to recoil 
from contact with it. It was with signs of disgust, rubbing 
his mouth with the back of each hand alternately, that he first 
showed returning vitality. In a minute or two more he was 
able to crawl to his bed in the corner, and then Janet pro- 
ceeded to examine his wound. 

By this time his leg was much swollen, but the wound had 
almost stopped bleeding, and it was plain there was no bullet 
in it, for there were two orifices. She washed it carefully 
and bound it up. Then Gibbie raised his head and looked 
somewhat anxiously around the room. 

Ye’re linkin’ efter Angus?” said Janet ; “ he’s yon’er upo’ 
the flure, a twa yairds frae ye. Dinna be fleyt ; yer father an’ 
Oscar has him safe eneuch, I s’ warran’. ” 

“Here, Janet!” cried her husband; “gien ye be throu’ 
wi’ the bairn, I maun be gauin’.” 

“ Hoot, Robert I ye’re no surely gauin’ to lea’ me an’ puir 
Gibbie, ’at maunna stir, i’ the hoose oor lanes wi’ the mur- 
derin’ man I ” returned Janet. 

“’Deed am I, lass I Jist rin and fess the bit tow’ at ye hing 
yer duds upo’ at the washin’, an’ we’ll bin’ the feet an’ the 
ban’s o’, im.” 

Janet obeyed and went. Angus, who had been quiet 
enough for the last ten minutes, meditating and watching, be- 
gan to swear furiously, but Robert paid no more heed than 
if he had not heard him — stood calm and grim at his head, 
with the clubbed sword heaved over his shoulder. When she 
came back, by her husband’s directions, she passed the rope 
repeatedly round the keeper’s ankles, then several times be- 
tween them, drawing the bouts tightly together, so that, in- 
stead of the two sharing one ring, each ankle had now, as it 
were, a close-fitting one for itself. Again and again, as she tied 


THE GAMEKEEPER. 


l6l 


it, did Angus meditate a sudden spring, but the determined 
look of Robert, and his feeling memory of the blows he had 
so unsparingly delivered upon him, as well as the weakening 
eflfect of that he had received on his head, caused him to hes- 
itate until it was altogether too late. When they began to 
bind his hands, however he turned desperate, and struck at 
both, cursing and raging. 

“Gien ye binna quaiet, ye s’ taste the dog’s teeth,” said 
Robert — Angus reflected that he would have a better chance 
when he was left alone with Janet, and yielded. — “Troth !” 
Robert went on, as he continued his task, “I hae no pity left 
for ye, Angus Mac Phclp ; an’ gien ye tyauve ony mair. I’ll 
lat at ye. I wad care no more to caw oot yer hams nor I wad 
to kill a tod To be hangt for’t, I wad be but prood. 

It’s a fine thing to be hangt for a guid cause, but ye’ll 
be hangt for an ill ane. — Noo, Janet, fess a bun’le 
o’ brackens frae the byre, an’ lay aneth’s held. We 
maunna be sairer upo’ him, nor the needcessity laid upo’ hiz. 
I s’ jist trail him aff o’ the door, an’ a bit on to the fire, for 
he’ll be cauld whan he’s quaitet doon, an’ syne I’ll awa’ an’ 
get word o’ the shirra’. Scotian’s come till a pretty pass, whan 
they shot men wi’ guns, as gien they war wull craturs to be 
peek an’ ainten. Care what set him ! He may weel be a 
keeper o’ ghem, for he’s as ill as a keeper o’ ’s brither as auld 
Cain himsel’. But,” he concluded, tying the last knot hard, 
“we’ll e’en dee what we can to keep the keeper.” 

It was seldom Robert spoke at such length, but the provo- 
cation, the wrath, the conflict, and the victory, had sent the 
blood rushing through his brain, and loosed his tongue like 
strong drink. 

“Ye’ll tak yer denner afore ye gang, Robert,” said his 
wife. 

‘ ‘Na, I can ait naething ; I’ll tak a bannock i’ my pooch. 
Ye can gie my denner to Angus : he’ll want hertenin’ for the 
w’uddie {gallows ). ” 

So saving he put the bannock in his pocket, flung his broad 
blue bonnet upon his head, took his stick, and ordering Oscar 
to remain at home and watch the prisoner, set out for a walk 
of five miles, as if he had never known such a thing as rheum- 
atism. He must find another magistrate than the laird ; he 
would not trust him where his own gamekeeper, Angus Mac 
Pholp, was concerned. 

“Keep yer ee upon him, Janet,” he said, turning in the 
doorway. “ Dinna lo\vse sicht o’ him afore I come back 


i 62 


SIR GIBBIE. 


the constable. Dinna lippen. I s’ be back in three hoors 
like. •” 

With these words he turned finally, and disappeared. 

The mortifiication of Angus as he lay thus trapped in the 
den of the beast-loon, at being taken and bound by an old 
man, a woman, and a collie dog, was extreme. He went 
over the whole affair again and again in his mind, ever with 
a fresh burst of fury. It was in vain he excused himself on 
the ground that the attack had been so sudden and treacher- 
ous, and the precautions taken so complete. He had proved 
himself an ass, and the whole country would ring with 
mockery of him ! He had sense enough, too, to know that 
he was in a serious as well as ludicrous predicament : he had 
scarcely courage enough to contemplate the possible result. 

If he could but get ms hands free, it would be easy to kill 
Oscar and disable Janet. For the idiot, he counted him noth- 
ing. He had better wait, however, until there should be no 
boiling liquid ready to her hand. 

Janet set out the dinner, peeled some potatoes, and ap- 
proaching Angus would have fed him. In place of accepting 
her ministrations, he fell to abusing her with the worst lan- 
guage he could find. She withdrew without a word, and sat 
down to her own dinner ; but, finding the torrent of vitupera- 
tion kept flowing, rose again, and going to the door, fetched 
a great jug of cold water from the pail that always stood 
there, and coming behind her prisoner, emptied it over his 
face. He gave a horrid yell taking the douche for a boiling 
one. 

‘‘Ye needna cry oot like that at guid cauld watter,” said 
Janet. “But ye’ll Jist absteen frae ony mair sic words i’ my 
bearin’, or ye s’ get the like ilka time ye brak oot. ” As she 
spoke, she knelt, and wiped his face and head with her 
apron. 

A fresh oath rushed to Angus’s lips, but the fear of a second 
jugful made him suppress it, and Janet sat down again to her 
dinner. She could scarcely eat a mouthful, however for pity 
of the rascal beside her, at whom she kept looking wistfully 
without daring again to offer him anything. 

While she sat thus, she caught a swift investigating look he 
cast on the cords that bound his hands, and then at the fire. 
She perceived at once what was passing in his mind. Rising, 
she went quickly to the byre, and returned immediately with 
a chain they used for tethering the cow. The end of it she 
slipt deftly round his neck, and made it fast, putting the little 
bar through a link. 


THE GAMEKEEPER. 


163 


Ir ye gauin’ to hang me, ye she-deeviU * he cried, mak- 
ing a futile attempt to grasp the chain with his bound hands. 

“ Wll be wantin’ a drappy mair cauld waiter. I’m thinkin’,” 
said Janet. 

She stretched the chain to its length, and with a great stone 
drove the sharp iron stake at the other end of it, into the clay- 
floor. Fearing next that, bound as his hands were, he might 
get a hold of the chain and drag out the stake, or might even 
contrive to remove the rope from his feet with them, or that 
he might indeed with his teeth undo the knot that confined 
his hands themselves — she got a piece of rope, and made a 
loop at the end of it, then watching her opportunity passed 
the loop between his hands, noosed the other end through it, 
and drew the noose tight. The free end of the rope she put 
through the staple that received the bolt of the cottage-door, 
and gradually, as he grew weary in pulling against her, tight- 
ened the rope until she had his arms at their stretch beyond 
his head. Not quite satisfied yet, she lastly contrived, in part 
by setting Oscar to occupy his attention, to do the same with 
his feet, securing them to a heavy chest in the corner oppo- 
site the door, upon which chest she heaped a pile of stones. 
If it pleased the Lord to deliver them from this man, she 
would have her honest part in the salvation ! And now at 
last she believed she had him safe. 

Gibbie had fallen asleep, but he now woke and she gave 
him his dinner ; then redd up, and took her Bible. Gibbie 
had lain down again, and she thought he was asleep. 

Angus grew more and more uncomfortable, both in body 
and in mind. He knew he was hated throughout the coun- 
try, and had hitherto rather enjoyed the knowledge ; but now 
he judged that the popular feeling, by no means a mere pre- 
judice, would tell against him committed for trial. He knew 
also that the magistrate to whom Robert had betaken himself, 
was not over friendly with his master, and certainly would 
not listen to any intercession from him. At length, what 
with pain, hunger, and fear, his pride began to yield, and, 
after an hour had paased in utter silence, he condescended to 
parley. 

“Janet Grant,” he said, “lat me gang, an’ I’ll trouble you 
or yours no more. ” 

“Wadna ye think me some fule to hearken till ye.?” sug- 
gested Janet. 

“ I’ll Sweir ony lawfu’ aith ’at ye like to lay upo’ me,” pro- 
tested Angus, “’at I’ll dee whatever ye please to require o* 
me. ” 


164 


SIR GIBBIE. 


“ I dinna doobt ye wad sweir ; but what neist ? ” said Janet. 

“ What neist but yell lowse my ban’s?’" rejoined Angus. 

‘ It’s no mainner o’ use mentionin’ ’t, ” replied Janet ; ‘ ‘ for, 
as ye ken, I’m un’er authority, an’ yersel’ h’ard my man tell 
me to tak unco precaution no to lat ye gang ; for verily, 
Angus, ye hae conduckit yersel’ this day more like ane pos- 
sessed wi a legion, than the douce faimily man ’ut ye’re sup- 
posit by the laird, yer maister, to be.” 

“Was ever man,” protested Angus, “made sic a fule o’, 
an* sae misguidit, by a pair o’ auld cottars like you an’ Rob- 
ert Grant ! ” 

“ Wi’ the help o’ the Lord, by means o’ the dog,” supple- 
mented Janet. “Iwuss frae my hert I hed the great reid 
draigon i’ yer place, an’ I wad watch him bonny, I can tell 
ye, Angus Mac Pholp. I wadna be clear aboot giein him 
his denner, Angus.” 

“ Let me gang, wumau, wi’ yer reid draigons ! I’ll hairm 
naebody. The puir idiot’s no muckle the waur, an’ 1 11 tak 
mair tent whan I fire anither time.” 

“ Wiser fowk nor me maun see to that,” answered Janet. 

“Hoots, wuman ! it was naething but an accident.” 

“ I kenna ; but it’ll be seen what Gibbie says.” 

“Awva ! his word’s guid for naething.” 

“ For a penny, or a thousan’ poun’.” 

“ My wife ’ll be oot o her wuts,” pleaded Angus. 

“Wad ye like a drink o’ milk ?” asked Janet, rising, 

“I wad that,” he answered. 

She filled her little teapot with milk, and he drank it from 
the spout, hoping she was on the point of giving way. 

“Noo,” she said, when he had finished his draught, “ye 
maun jist mak the best o’ it, Angus. Ony gait, it’s a guid 
lesson in patience to ye, an’ that ye haena had ower aften. 
I’m thinkin’ — Robert'll be here er lang. ” 

With these words she set down the teapot, and went out : 
it was time to milk her cow. 

In a little while Gibbie rose, tried to walk, but failed, and 
getting down on his hands and knees, crawled out after her. 
Angus caught a glimpse of his face as he crept past him, and 
then first recognized the boy he had lashed. Not compunc- 
tion, but an occasional pang of dread lest he should have 
been the cause of his death, and might come upon his body 
in one of his walks, had served so to fix his face in his mem- 
ory, that, now he had a near view of him, pale with suffering 
and loss of blood and therefore more like his former self, he 
knew him beyond a doubt. With a great shoot of terror he 


THE GAMEKEEPER. 


165 

concluded that the idiot had been lying there silently gloat- 
ing over his revenge, waiting only till Janet should be out of 
sight, and was now gone after some instrument wherewith to 
take it. He pulled and tugged at his bonds, but only to find 
escape absolutely hopeless. In gathering horror, he lay 
moveless at last, but strained his hearing towards every 
sound. 

Not only did Janet often pray with Gibbie, but sometimes 
as she read, her heart would grow so full, her soul be so per- 
vaded, with the conviction perhaps the consciousness, of the 
presence of the man who had said he would be always with 
his friends, that, sitting there on her stool, she would begin 
talking to him out of the very depth of her life, just as if she 
saw him in Robert’s chair in the ingle-neuk, at home in 
her cottage as in the house where Mary sat at his feet and 
heard his word. Then would Gibbie listen indeed, awed by 
very gladness. He never doubted that Jesus was there, or 
that Janet saw him all the time although he could not. 

This custom of praying aloud, 5he had grown into so long 
before Gibbie came to her, and he was so much and such 
a child, that his presence was no check upon the habit. It 
came in part from the intense reality of her belief, and was in 
part a willed fostering of its intensity. She never imagined 
that words were necessary ; she believed that God knew her 
every thought, and that the moment she lifted her heart, it 
entered into communion with him ; but the very sound of 
the words she spoke seemed to make her feel nearer to the 
man, who being the eternal Son of the Father, yet had ears 
to hear and lips to speak like herself. To talk to him aloud, 
also kept her thoughts together, helped her to feel the fact of 
the things she contemplated, as well as the reality of his 
presence. 

Now the byre was just on the other side of the turf wall 
against which was the head of Gibbie’s bed, and through the 
wall Gibbie had heard her voice, with that something in the 
tone of it which let him understand she was not talking to 
Crummie, but to Crummie’s maker ; and it was therefore he 
had got up and gone after her. For there was no reason, so 
far as he knew or imagined, why he should not hear, as so 
many times before, what she was saying to the Master. He 
supposed that as she could not well speak to him in the pres- 
ence of a man like Angus, she had gone out to the byre to 
have her talk with him there. He crawled to the end of the 
cottage so silently that she heard no sound ot his approach. 
He would not go into the byre, for that might disturb her, 


i66 


SIR GIBBIE. 


for she would have to look up to know that it was only Gibbie ; 
he would listen at the door. He found it wide open, -and 
peeping in, saw Crummie chewing away, and Janet on her 
knees with her forehead leaning against the cow and her hands 
thrown up over her shoulder. She spoke in such a voice of 
troubled entreaty as he had never heard from her before, but 
which yet woke a strange vibration of memory in his deepest 
heart. — Yes, it was his father’s voice it reminded him ol ! So 
had he cried in prayer the last time he ever heard him ^peak. 
What she said was nearly this : 

“OLord, gin ye wad but say what ye wad hae deen ! 
Whan a body disna ken yer wull, she's jist driven to distract- 
ion. Thoo knows, my Maister, as weeks I can tell ye, ’at 
gien ye said till me, ’That man’s gauin’ to cut yer thro’t ; tak 
the tows frae him, an’ lat him up,’ 1 wad rin todee’t. It’s no 
revenge. Lord ; it’s jist ’at I dinna ken. The man’s dune me 
no ill, ’cep’ as he’s sair hurtit yer bonnie Gibbie. It’s Gibbie 
’at has to fogie ’im an’ syne me. But my man tellt me no to 
lat him up, an’ hoo am 1 to be a wife sic as ye wad hae, O 
Lord, gien I dinna dee as my man tellt me 1 It wad ill be- 
fit me to lay lat my auld Robert gang sae far wantin his den- 
ner, a’ for naething. What wad he think whan he cam 
hame ! Of coorse. Lord, gien ye tellt me, that wad mak a’ 
the differ, for ye’re Robert’s maister as weeks mine, an’ your 
wull wad saitisfee him jist as weeks me. I wad fain lat him 
gang, puir chiel ! but I daurna. Lord, convert him to the 
trowth. Lord, lat him ken what hate is. — But eh. Lord ! I 
wuss ye wad tell me what to du. Thy wull’s the beginnin’ 
an’ mids an’ en’ o’ a’ thing to me. I’m wullin’ eneuch to lat 
him gang, but he’s Robert’s pris’ner an’ Gibbie’s enemy ; he’s 
no my pris’ner an’ no my enemy, an’ I dinna think I hae the 
richt. An’ whakens but he micht gang shottin’ mair fowk 
yet, ’cause I loot him gang ! — But he canna shot a hare 
wantin’ thy wull, O Jesus, the Saviour o’ man an’ beast ; an’ 
ill wad I like to hae a han’ i’ the hangin’ o’ ’m. He may de- 
serve ’t, Lord, I dinna ken ; but I’m thinkin’ ye made him no 
sae weel tempered — as my Robert, for enstance.” 

Here her voice ceased, and she fell a moaning. 

Her trouble was echoed in dim pain from Gibbie’s soul. 
That the prophetess who knew everything, the priestess who 
was at home in the very treasure-house of the great king, 
should be thus abandoned to dire perplexity, was a dreadful, 
a bewildering fact. But now first he understood the real state 
of the affair in the purport of the old man’s absence ; also how 
he was himself potently concerned in the business : if the 


THE GAMEKEEPER. 


167 


offence had been committed against Gibbie then with Gibbie 
lay the power, therefore the duty of forgiveness. But verily 
Gibbie’s merit and his grace were in inverse ratio. Few things 
were easier to him than to love his enemies, and his merit in 
obeying the commandment was small indeed. No enemy 
had as yet done him, in his immediate person, the wrong he 
could even imagine it hard to forgive. No sooner had Janet 
ceased than he was on his way back to the cottage : on its 
floor lay one who had to be waited upon with forgiveness. 

Wearied with futile struggles, Angus found himself com- 
pelled to abide his fate, and was lying quite still when Gibbie 
re-entered. The boy thought he was asleep, but on the con- 
trary he was watching his every motion, full of dread. Gib- 
bie went hopping upon one foot to the hole in the wall where 
Janet kept the only knife she had. It was not there. He 
glanced round, but could not see it. There was no time to 
lose. Robert’s returning steps might be heard any moment, 
and poor Angus might be hanged — only for shooting Gibbie ! 
He hopped up to him and examined the knots that tied his 
hands : they were drawn so tight — in great measure by his 
own struggles — and so difficult to reach from their position, 
that he saw it would take him a long time to undo them. 
Angus thought, with fresh horror, he was examining them to 
make sure they would hold, and was so absorbed in watch- 
ing his movements that he even forgot to curse, which was 
the only thing left him. Gibbie looked round again for a 
moment, as if in doubt, then darted upon the tongs — there 
was no poker — and thrust them into the fire, caught up the 
asthmatic old bellows, and began to blow the peats, Angus 
saw the first action, heard the second, and a hideous dismay 
clutched his very heart : the savage fool was about to take his 
revenge in pinches with the red hot tongs ! He looked for 
no mercy — perhaps felt that he deserved none. Manhood 
held him silent until he saw him take the implement of tor- 
ture from the fire, glowing, not red but white hot, when he 
uttered such a terrific yell, that Gibbie dropt the tongs— hap- 
pily not the hot ends — on his own bare foot, but caught them 
up again instantly, and made a great hop to Angus : if Janet 
had heard that yell and came in, all would be spoilt. But 
the faithless keeper began to struggle so fiercely, writhing with 
every contortion, and kicking with every inch, left possible to 
him, that Gibbie hardly dared attempt anything for dread of 
burning him, while he sent yell after yell “as fast as mill- 
wheels strike.” With a sudden thought Gibbie sprang to the 
door and locked it, so that Janet should not get in and An- 


i68 


SIR GIEBIE. 


gus, hearing the bolt, was the more convinced that his pur- 
pose was cruel, and struggled and yelled, with his eyes fixed 
on the glowing tongs, now fast cooling in Gibbie’s hand. If 
instead of glowering at the tongs, he had but lent one stead- 
fast regard to the face of the boy whom he took for a de- 
moniacal idiot, he would have seen his supposed devil smile 
the sweetest of human, troubled, pitiful smiles. Even then, 
I suspect, however, his eye being evil, he would have beheld 
in the smile only the joy of malice in the near pro'^pect of a 
glut of revenge. 

In the meantime Janet, in her perplexity, had, quite for- 
getful of the poor cows necessities, abandoned Crummie, 
and wandered down the path as far as the shoulder her hus- 
band must cross ascending from the other side : thither, a 
great rock intervening, so little of Angus’s cries reached, that 
she heard nothing through the deafness of her absorbing ap- 
peal for direction to her sliepherd, the master of men. 

Gibbie thrust the tongs again into the fire, and while blow- 
ing it, bethought him that it might give Angus confidence if 
he removed the chain from his neck. He laid down the bel- 
lows and did so. But to Angus the action seemed only pre- 
paratory to taking him by the throat with the horrible imple- 
ment. In his agony and wild endeavor to frustrate the sup- 
posed intent, he struggled harder than ever. But now Gibbie 
was undoing the rope fastened round the chest. This Angus 
did not perceive, and when it came suddenly loose in the 
midst of one of his fierce straining contortions, the result 
was that he threw his body right over his head and lay on his 
face for a moment confused. Gibbie saw his advantage. He 
snatched his clumsy tool out of the fire, seated himself on 
the corresponding part of Angus’s person, and seizing with 
the tongs the rope between his feet, held on to both, in spite 
of his heaves and kicks. In the few moments that passed 
while Gibbie burned through a round of the rope, Angus 
imagined a considerable number of pangs ; but when Gibbie 
rose and hopped away, he discovered that his feet were at 
liberty, and scrambled up, his head dizzy, and his body reel- 
ing. But such was then the sunshine of delight in Gibbie’s 
countenance that even Angus stared at him for a moment — 
only, however, with a vague reflection on the inconsequen- 
tiality of idiots, to which succeeded the impulse to take ven- 
geance upon him for his sufferings, But Gibbie still had the 
tongs, and Angus’s hands were still tied. He held them out 
to him. Gibbie pounced upon the knots with hands and teeth. 
They occupied him some little time, during which Angus was 


THE GAMEKEEPER, 


169 

almost compelled to take better cognizance of the face of the 
savage; and dull as he was to the good things of human nature, 
he was yet in a measure subdued by what he there looked upon 
rather than perceive ; while he could scarcely mistake the 
hearty ministration of his teeth and nails ! The moment his 
hands were free, Gibbie looked up at him with a smile, and 
Angus did not even box his ears. Holding by the w'all, Gib- 
bie limped to the door and opened it. With a nod meant for 
thanks, the game-keeper stepped out, took up his gun from 
where it leaned against the wall, and hurried away down the 
hill. A moment sooner and he would have met Janet ; but 
she had just entered the byre again to milk poor Crummie. 

When she came into the cottage, she stared with astonish- 
ment to see no Angus on the floor. Gibbie, who had lain 
down again in much pain, made signs that he had let him 
go : whereupon such a look of relief came over her counte- 
nance that he was filled with fresh gladness, and was if possi- 
ble more satisfied still with what he had done. 

It was late before Robert returned — alone, weary, and disap- 
pointed. The magistrate was from home ; he had waited for 
him, as long as he dared ; but at length, both because of his 
wife’s unpleasant position, and the danger to himself if he 
longer delayed his journey across the mountain, seeing it 
threatened a storm, and there was no moon, he set out. That 
he too was relieved to find no Angus there, he did not attempt 
to conceal. The next day he went to see him, and told him 
that, to please Gibbie, he had consented to say nothing more 
about the affair. Angus could not help bein^ sullen, but he 
judged it wise to behave as well as he could, kept his temper 
therefore, and said he was sorry he had been so hasty, but that 
Robert had punished him pretty well, for it would be weeks 
before he recovered the blow on the head he had given him. 
So they parted on tolerable terms, and there was no further 
persecution of Gibbie from that quarter. 

It was sometime before he was able to be out again, but no 
hour spent with Janet was lost. 


170 


SIR GIBBIE. 


CHAPTER XXVIL 

A VOICE. 

That winter the old people were greatly tried with rheuma- 
tism ; for not only were the frosts severe, but there was much 
rain between. Their children did all in their power to minis- 
ter to their wants, and Gibbie was nurse as well as shep- 
herd. He who when a child had sought his place in the 
live universe by attending on drunk people and helping them 
home through the midnight streets, might have felt himself 
promoted considerably in having the necessities of such as 
Robert and Janet to minister to, but he never thouglit of that 
It made him a little mournful sometimes to think that he 
could not read to them. Janet however, was generally able to 
read aloud. Robert, being also asthmatic, suffered more 
than she, and was at times a little impatient. 

Gibbie still occupied his heather-bed on the floor, and it 
v;as part of his business, as nurse, to keep up a good fire on 
the hearth ; peats happily, were plentiful. Awake for this 
cause, he heard in the middle of one night, the following 
dialogue between the husband and wife. 

“I’m growin’ terrible auld Janet,” said Robert. “It’s a 
sair thing this auld age, an’ I canna bring myself content wi’t. 
Ye see I haena been used till’t.” 

“That’s true Robert,” answered Janet. “Gien we had 
been born auld, we micht by this time hae been hame wi ’t. 
But syne what wad hae come o’ the gran’ delicht o’ seein’ 
auld age rin hirplin awa’ frae the face o’ the Auncient o’ 
Days ? ” 

“I wad fain be contentit wi’ my lot, thouch,” peristed 
Robert; “but whan I fin’ mysel’ sae helpless like, I canna 
get it oot o’ my heid ’at the Lord has forsaken me, an’ left 
me to mak an ill best o’ ’t ‘wantin’ him.” 

“ I wadna lat sic a thoucht come intil my heid, Robert, sae 
lang as I kenned I cudna draw breath nor wag ^tongue 
wantin’ him, for in him we leeve an’ muv an’ hae oor bein’. 
Gien he be the life o’ me, what fur sud I trible myself aboot 
that life.” 

“Ay lass ! but gien ye hed this ashmy, makin’ a’ yer breisr 
as gien ’twar lined wi’ the san paper ’at they hed been lichtin 


A VOICE. 


I7I 

a thoosan’ or twa lucifer spunks upo’ — ye micht be driven to 
forget ’at the Lord was yer life — for I can tell ye it’s no like 
haein his breith i’ yer nostrils. ” 

“Eh, my bonny laad !” returned Janet with infinite tender- 
ness, “I micht weel forget it ! I doobt wadna be half sae 
patient as yersel’ ; but jist to hand ye up, I s’ tell ye what I 
think I wad ettle efter. I wad say to mysel, ’ Gien he be the 
life o’ me, I hae no business wi’ ony mair o’ ’t nor he gies 
me. I hae but to tak ae breath, be ’t hard, be ’t easy, ane at 
a time, an’ lat him see to the neist himsel.’ Here I am, an’ 
here’s him ; an’ ’at he winna lat’s ain wark come to till, that 
I’m weel sure o’. An’ ye micht jist think to yersel’, Robert, 
’at as ye are born intil the warl, ’ an’ here ye are auld intil’t — ye 
may jist think, I say, ’at hoo ye’re jist new-born an auld man, 
an’ beginnin’ to grow yoong, an’ ’at that’s yer business. For 
naither you nor me can be that far frae hame, Robert, an’ 
whan we win there we’ll be yoong eneuch, I’m thinkin ’ ; an’ 
no ower yoong, for we’ll hea what they say ye canna get 
doon here — a pair o’ auld heids upo’ yoong shoothers. ” 

“Eh! but I wuss I may hae ye there, Janet, for I kenna 
what I wad do wantin’ ye. I wad be unco stray up yon’er, 
gien I had to gang my lane, an’ no you to refar till, ’at kens 
the w’ys o’ the place.” 

“I ken no more about the w’ys o’ the place nor yersel’, 
Robert, though I’m thinkin’ they’ll be unco quaiet an’ sensi- 
ble, seein’ ’at a’ there maun be gentle fowk. It’s eneuch to 
me ’at I’ll be i’ the hoose o’ my Maister’s father; an’ my 
Maister was weel conten, to gang to that hoose ; an’ it maun 
be something by ordinar’ ’at was fit for him. But puir simple 
fowk like oorsel’s ’ill hae no need to hing down the heid 
an’ luik like gowks ’at disna ken mainners. Bairns are no 
expeckit to ken a’ the w’ys a’ a muckle hoose ’at they never 
been intil i’ their lives afore.” 

“It’s no that a’thegither ’at tribles me, Janet; it’s mair ’at 
I’ll be expeckit to sing an’ luik pleased-like, an’ I div not ken 
hoo it’ll be poassible, an’ you naegait ’ithin my sicht or my 
cry, or the bearin’ o’ my ears.” 

“Div ye believe this, Robert — ’at we’re a’ ane, jist ane, in 
Christ Jesus ?” 

‘ ' I canna weel say. I’m no denyin’ naething ’at the bulk 
tells me ; ye ken me better nor that, Janet ; but there’s monv 
a thing it says ’at I dinna ken whether I believe’t ’at my ain 
han’, or whether it be only at a’ thing ’at ye believe, Janet, 
’s jist to me as gien I believet it mysel’ ; an’ that’s a sair 


172 


SIR GIBBIE. 


thought, for a man canna be savet e’en by proxy o’ ’s ain 
wife. ” 

“Weel, ye’er just muckle whaur I fin’ mysel’ whiles, Robert; 
an’ I comfort mysel’ wi’ the houp ’at we’ll ken the thing there, 
■‘at maybe we’er but tryin’ to believe here. But ony gait ye 
hae pruv’t weel ’at you an’ me’s ane, Robert. Noo we ken 
frae Scriptur’ ’at the Maister cam to mak aye ane o’ them ’at 
was at twa ; an’ we ken also ’at he had conquered Deith ; sae 
he wad never lat Deith mak the ane ’at he had made ane, 
intil twa again : it’s no rizon to think it. For oucht I ken, 
what luiks like a gangin’ awa may be a cornin’ nearer. An’ 
there may be w’ys o’ cornin’ nearer till ane anither up yon’er 
’at we ken naething aboot doon here. There’s that laddie, 
Gibbie : I canna but think ’at gien he hed the tongue to 
speyk, or aiven gien he cud mak’ ony soon’ wi’ sense intil’t, 
like singin’, say, he wad fin’ himsel’ nearer till’s nor he can i’ 
the noo. Wha kens but them ’at’s singin’ up there afore the 
throne, may sing so bonny, ’at, i’ the pooer o’ their braw 
thouchts, their verra sangs may be like laidders for them to 
come doon upo’, an’ hing aboot them ’at they hae left ahin’ 
them, till the time comes for them to gang an’ jine them i 
the green pasters aboot the tree o’ life.” 

More of like talk followed, but these words concerning 
appropinquation in song, although their meaning was not 
very clear, took such a hold of Gibbie that he heard nothing 
after, but fell asleep thinking about them. 

In the middle of the following night, Janet woke her 
husband. 

“Robert! Robert I” she whispered in his ear, “hearken. 
I’m thinkin’ yon maun be some wee angel come doon to 
say, ’I ken ye, puir fowk.’” 

Robert, scarce daring to draw his breath, listened with his 
heart in his mouth. From somewhere, apparently within the 
four walls of the cottage, came a low lovely sweet song — 
something like the piping of a big bird, something like a 
small human voice. 

“It canna be an angel,” said Robert at length, “for it’s 
singin’ ^My Nannie’s Awa’.’” 

“An’ what for no an angel.?” returned Janet. “Isna that 
jist what ye micht be singin’. yersel’, efter what ye was sayin’ 
last nicht.? I’m thinkin’ there maun be a heap o’ yoong 
angels up there, new deid, singin’, ‘My Nannie’s Awa’.’” 

“ Hoot, Janet ! ye ken there’s naither merryin’ nor giein' in 
merriage there.” 

“Wha was sayin’ onything aboot merryin’ or giein’ in 


A VOICE. 


173 


merriage, Robert? Is that to say ^at you an’ me’s to be no 
more to ane anither nor ither folk? Nor it’s no to say ’at, 
’cause merriage is no the w’y o’ the country, ’at there’s to be 
naething better i’ the place o’ ’it. ” 

“What garred the Maister say onything aboot it than?” 

“Jist ’cause they plaguit him wi’ sperin’. He wad never 
hae opened his moo’ anent it — it wasna ane o, his subjec’s — 
gien it hadna been ’at a wheen pride-prankit beuk-fowk ’at 
didna believe there was ony angels, or speerits o’ ony kin’, 
but said ’at a man ance deid, ance deid was aye an’ a’ the 
ither deid, an’ yet preten’it to believe in God himsel’ for a’ 
that, thoucht to bleck {non-plus) the Maister wi’ sperin’ whilk 
o’ saiven a puir body at had been garred merry them a’, wad 
be the wife o’ whan they got up again.” 

“ A body michi think it wad be left to hersel’ to say,” sug- 
gested Robert. “She had come throu’ eneuch to hae some 
claim to be considert.” 

“She maun hae been a richt good ane,” said Janet, “gien 
ilk ane o’ the saiven wad be wantin’ her again. But I s’ war- 
rin’ she kenned weel eneuch whilk o’ them was her ain. But, 
Robert, man, this is jokin’ — no ’at it’s your wyte {blame) — an’ 
it’s no becomin’, I doobt upo’ sic a sarious subjec. An’ I’m 
fear’t — ay ! there ! — I thoucht as muckle ! — the wee sangie’s 
drappit itsel’ a’thegither, jist as gien the laverock had fa’ntit 
intil ’ts nest. I doobt we’ll hear nae mair o’ ’t.” 

As soon as he could hear what they were saying, Gibbie had 
stopped to listen ; and now they had stopped also, and there 
was an end. 

For weeks he had been picking out tunes on his Pan’s- 
pipes ; also, he had lately discovered that, although he could 
not articulate, he could produce tones, and had taught him- 
self to imitate the pipes. Now, to his delight, he had found 
that the noises he made were recognized as song by his father 
and mother. From that time he was often heard crooning 
to himself. Before long he began to look about the heavens 
for airs — to suit this or that song he came upon, or heard 
from Donah 


174 


SIR GIBBIE. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE WISDOM OF THE WISE. 


Change, meantime, was in progress elsewhere, and as well 
upon the foot as high on the side of Glashgar — change which 
seemed all important to those who felt the grind of the glacier 
as it slipped. Thomas Galbraith, of Glashruach, Esquire, 
whom no more than any other could negation save, w^as not 
enfranchised from folly, or lifted above belief in a lie, by his 
hatred to what he called superstition : he had long fallen in- 
to what will ultimately prove the most degrading superstition 
of all — the worship of Mammon, and was rapidly sinking from 
deep to lower deep. First of all, this was the superstition or 
placing hope and trust in that which, from age to age, and on 
the testimony of all sorts of persons who have tried it, has 
been proved to fail utterly ; next, such was the folly of the 
man whose wisdom was indignant with the harmless imagina- 
tion of simple people, for daring to flutter its wings upon his 
land, that he risked what he loved best in the world, even 
better than Mammon, the approbation of fellow-worshippers, 
by investing in Welsh gold mines. 

The property of Glashruach was a good one, but not nearly 
BO large as it had been, and he was anxious to restore it to its 
former dimensions. The rents were low, and it could but, 
tardily widen its own borders, while of money he had little, 
and no will to mortgage. To increase his money, that he 
might increase his property, he took to speculation, but had 
never had much success until that same year, when he disposed 
of certain shares at a large profit — nothing troubled by the 
conviction that the man who bought them — in ignorance of 
many a fact which the laird knew — must in all probability be 
X’uined by them. He counted this success, and it gave him 
confidence to speculate further. In the mean time, with what 
he had thus secured, he reannexed to the property a small 
farm which had been for some time in the market, but 
'whose sale he had managed to delay. The purchase gave 
him particular pleasure, because the farm not only marched 
with his home-grounds, but filled up a great notch in the 
map of the property between Glashruach and the Mains, with 


THE WISDOM OF THE WISE. 1 75 

which also it marched. It was good land, and he let it a1 
once, on his own terms, to j\Ir. Duff. 

In the spring, affairs looked rather bad for him, and in the 
month of may, he considered himself compelled to go to 
London : he had a faith in his own business faculty quite as 
foolish as any superstition in Gormgarnet. There he fell into 
the hands of a certain man, whose true place would have been, 
in the swell mob, and not in the house of Commons — a fellow 
who used his influence and facilities as member of Parliament 
in promoting bubble companies. He was intimate with an 
elder brother of the laird, himself member for a not unimpor^ 
tant borough — a man, likewise, of principles that love the» 
shade ; and between them they had no difficulty in making- 
a tool of Thomas Galbraith, as chairman of a certain aggre^ 
gate of iniquity, whose designation will not, in some families, 
be forgotten for a century or so. During the summer, there>. 
fore, the laird was from home, working up the company, hop- 
ing much from it, and trying hard to believe in it — whipping- 
up its cream, and perhaps himself taking the froth, certainly 
doing his best to make others take it, for an increase of genu- 
ine substance. He devoted the chamber of his imagination 
to the service of Mammon, and the brownie he kept ther<s 
played him fine pranks. 

A smaller change, though of really greater importance in th^ 
end, was, that in the course of the wdnter, one of Donal’s sis- 
ters was engaged by the housekeeper at Glashruach, chiefly 
to wait upon Miss Galbraith. Ginevra was still a silent, 
simple, unconsciously retiring, and therewith dignified giri 
in whom childhood and womanhood had begun to interchange* 
hues, as it were with the play of colors in a dove’s neck. 
Happy they in whom neither has a final victory ! Happ^ 
also all who have such women to love ! At one mo- 
ment Ginevra would draw herself up — bridle her grand- 
mother would have called it — with involuntary recoiL 
from doubtful approach ; the next, Ginny would burst 
out in a merry laugh at something in which only 
a child could have perceived the mirth-causing element ; then 
again the woman would seem suddenly to le-enter and re- 
buke the child, for the sparkle would fade from her eyes, ana 
she would look solemn, and even a little sad. The people 
about the place loved her, but from the scillness on the gen- 
eral surface of her behavior, the far away feeling she gave* 
them, and the impossibility of divining how she was thinking 
except she chose to unbosom herself, they were all a little 
afraid of her as well. They did not acknowledge, even to 


176 


SIR GIBBIE. 


themselves, that her evident conscientiousness bore no small 
part in causing that slight uneasiness of which they were 
aware in her presence. Possibly it roused in some of them 
such a dissatisfaction with themselves as gave the initiative to 
dislike of her. 

In the mind of her new maid, however, there was no strife, 
therefore no tendency to dislike. She was thoroughly well- 
meaning, like the rest of her family, and finding her little 
mistress dwell in the same atmosphere, the desire to be accept- 
able to her awoke at once, and grew rapidly in her heart. 
She was the youngest of Janet’s girls, about four years older 
than Donal, not clever, but as sweet as honest, and full of 
divine service. Always ready to think others better than her- 
self, the moment she saw the still face of Ginevra, she took 
her for a little saint, and accepted her as a queen, whose will 
to her should be law. Ginevra, on her part, was taken with 
the healthy hue and honest eyes of the girl, and neither felt 
any dislike to her touching her hair, nor lost her temper 
when she was awkward and pulled it. Before the winter was 
over, the bond between them was strong. 

One principal duty required of Nicie — her parents had 
named her after the mother of St. Paul’s Timothy — was to 
accompany her mistress every fine day to the manse, a mile 
and a half from Glashruach. For some time Ginevra had 
been under the care of Miss Machar, the daughter of the 
parish clergyman, an old gentleman of sober aspirations, to 
whom the last century was the Augustian age of English litera- 
ture. Pie was genial, gentle, and a lover of his race, with 
much reverence for, and some faith in, a Scotch God, whose 
nature v/as summed up in a series of words beginning with 
Omni. Partly that the living was a poor one, and her father 
old and inhrm, INIiss Machar, herself middle-aged, had under- 
taken the instruction of the little heiress, never doubting her- 
self mistress of all it was necessary a lady should know. By 
nature she was romantic, but her romance had faded a good 
deal. Possibly had she read the new poets of her age, the 
vital flame of wonder and hope might have kept not a little 
of its original brightness in her heart ; but under her father’s 
guidance, she had never got beyond the Night Thoughts, 
and the Course of Time. Both intellectually and emotion- 
ally, therefore. Miss Machar had withered instea''d of ripen- 
ing. As to her spiritual carriage, she thought too much 
about being a lady to be thoroughly one. The utter gra- 
ciousness of the ideal lady would blush to regard itself. She 
was both gentle and dignified ; but would have done a nature 


THE BEAST-BOY. 


177 


inferior to Ginevra’s injury by the way she talked of things right 
and wrong as becoming or not becoming in a lady of posi- 
tion such as Ginevra would one day find herself. What les- 
sons she taught her she taught her well. Her music was old- 
fashioned, of course ; but I have a fancy that perhaps the 
older the music one learns first, the better ; for the deeper is 
thereby the rooting of that which will have the atmosphere of 
the age to blossom in. But then to every lover of the truth, 
a true thing is dearer because it is old-fashioned, and dearer 
because it is new-fashioned : and true music, like true love, 
like all truth, laughs at the god Fashion, because it knows 
him to be but an ape. 

Every day, then, except Saturday and Sunday, Miss Machar 
had for two years been in the habit of walking or driving to 
Glashruach, and there spending the morning hours ; but of 
late her father had been ailing, and as he was so old that she 
could not without anxiety leave him when suffering from the 
smallest indisposition, she had found herself compelled either 
to give up teaching Ginevra, or to ask Mr. Galbraith to allow 
her to go, when such occasion should render it necessary, to 
the manse. She did the latter ; the laird had consented ; 
and thence arose the duty required of Nicie. Mr. Machar’s 
health did not improve as the spring advanced, and by the 
time Mr. Galbraith left for London, he was confined to his 
room, and Ginevra’s walk to the manse for lessons had set- 
tled into a custom. 


CHAPTER XXIX, 

THE BEAST-BOY. 

One morning they found, on reaching the manse, that the 
minister was very unwell, and that in consequence Miss Ma- 
char could not attend to Ginevra ; they turned, therefore, to 
walk home again. Now the manse, upon another root of 
Glashgar, was nearer than Glashruach to Nicie’s home, and 
many a time as she went and came, did she lift longing eyes 
to the ridge that hid it, from her view. This morning, Gin- 
evra observed that, every other moment, Nicie was looking up 
the side of the mountain, as if she saw something unusual 
upon it— occasionally, indeed, when the winding of the road 
turned their backs to it, stopping and turning round to gaze. 


178 


SIR GIBBIE. 


‘‘What is the matter with you, Nicie?’’ she asked. “What 
are you looking at up there f ” 

“I’m won’erin’ what my mother’ll be deein’” answered 
Nicie : “ she’s up there.” 

“Up there!” exclaimed Ginny, and, turning, stared at the 
mountain too, expecting to perceive Nicie’s mother some- 
where upon the face of it. 

“ Na, na, missie ? ye canna see her, ” said the girl ; “she’s 
no in sicht. She’s ower ayont there. Only gien we war up 
whaur ye see yon twa three sheep again’ the lift (sfy), we cud 
see the bit hoosie whar her an’ my father bides.” 

“ How I should like to see your father and mother, 
Nicie 1 ” exclaimed Ginevra. 

“Well, I’m sure they wad be richt glaid to see yersel’, 
missie, ony time ’at ye likit to gang an’ see them. ” 

“Why shouldn’t we go now, Nicie } It’s not a dangerous 
place, is it ? ” 

“No, missie. Glashgar’s as quaiet an’ weel-behaved a hill 
as ony in a’ the cweentry,” answered Nicie, laughing. “She’s 
some puir, like the lave o’ ’s, an’ hasna muckle to spare, but 
the sheep get a feow nibbles upon her, here an’ there ; an’ 
my mither manages to keep a coo, an’ get plenty o’ milk frae 
her tee. ” 

“Come, then, Nicie. We have plenty of time. Nobody 
wants either you or me, and we shall get home before any 
one misses us.” 

Nicie was glad enough to consent ; they turned at once to 
the hill, and began climbing. But Nicie did not know this 
part of it nearly so well as that which lay between Glash- 
ruach and the cottage, and after they had climbed some dis- 
tance, often stopping and turning to look down on the valley 
below, the prospect of which, with its streams and river, kept 
still widening and changing as they ascended, they arrived at 
a place where the path grew very doubtful, and she could not 
tell in which of two directions they ought to go. 

“Ill take this way, and you take that, Nicie, ’’said Ginevra, 
“ and if I find there is no path my way, 1 will come back to 
yours ; and if you find there is no path your way, you will 
come back to mine.” 

It was a childish proposal, and one to which Nicie should 
not have consented, but she was little m.ore than a child her- 
self. Advancing a short distance in doubt, and the path re- 
appearing quite plainly, she sat down, expecting her little 


THa BEAST-BOY. 


179 


mistress to return directly. No thought of anxiety crossed 
her mind : how should one, in broad sunlight, on a mountain- 
side, in the first of summer, and with the long day before 
them ? So, there sitting in peace, Nicie fell into a maidenly 
reverie, and so there Nicie sat for a long time, half dreaming 
in the great light, without once really thinking about any- 
thing. All at once she came to herself : some latent fear had 
exploded in her heart : yes ! what could have become of her 
litde mistress ? She jumped to her feet, and shouted “Missie ! 
Missie Galbraith ! Ginny ! ” but no answer came back. The 
mountain was as still as at midnight. She ran to the spot 
where they had parted, and along the other path : it was 
plainer than that where she had been so idly forgetting herself. 
She hurried on, wildly calling as she ran. 

In the mean time Ginevra, having found the path indubit- 
able, and imagining it led straight to the door of Nicie's 
mother’s cottage, and that Nicie would be after her in a 
moment, thinking also to have a bit of fun with her, set off 
dancing and running so fast, that by the time Nicie came to 
herself, she was a good mile from her. What a delight it was 
to be thus alone upon the grand mountain ! with the earth 
banished so far below, and the great rocky heap climbing 
and leading and climbing up and up towards the sky I 

Ginny was not in the way of thinking much about God. 
Little had been taught her concerning him, and nothing 
almost that was pleasant to meditate upon — nothing that she 
could hide in her heart, and be dreadfully glad about when 
she lay alone in her little bed, listening to the sound of the 
burn that ran under her window. But there was in her soul 
a large wilderness ready for the voice that should come crying 
to prepare the way of the king. 

The path was after all a mere sheep-track, and led her at 
length into a lonely hollow in the hill-side, with a swampy 
peat-bog at the bottom of it. She stopped. The place looked 
unpleasant, reminding her of how she always felt when she 
came unexpectedly upon Angus MacPholp. She would go 
no further alone ; she would wait till Nicie overtook her. It 
must have been just in such places that the people possessed 
with devils — only Miss Machar always made her read the 
word, demons — ran about ! As she thought thus, a lone- 
hearted bird uttered a single, wailing cry, strange to her 
ear. The cry remained solitary, unanswered, and then first 
suddenly she felt that there was nobody there but herself, 
and the feeling had in it a pang of uneasiness. But she was 
a brave child ; nothing frightened her much except her 


i8o 


SIR GIBBIE. 


father ; she turned and went slowly back to the edge of the 
hollow. Nicie must by this time be visible. 

In her haste and anxiety however, Nicie had struck into 
another sheep-track, and was now higher up the hill ; so that 
Ginny could see no living thing nearer than in the valley 
below : far down there — and it was some comfort, in the 
desolation that now began to invade her — she saw upon the 
road, so distant that it seemed motionless, a cart with a man 
in it, drawn by a white horse. Never in her life before had 
she felt that she was alone. She had often felt lonely, but 
she had always known where to find the bodily presence of 
somebody. Now she might cry and scream the whole day, 
and nobody answer ! Her heart swelled into her throat, then 
sank away, leaving a wide hollow. It was so eerie ! But 
Nicie would soon come, and then all would be well. 

She sat down on a stone, where she could see the path she 
had come a long way back. But never and never did any Nicie 
appear. At last she began to cry. This process with Ginny 
was a very slow one, and never brought her much relief. The 
tears would mount into her eyes, and remain there, little pools 
of Baca, a long time before the crying went any further. But 
with time the pools would grow deeper, and swell larger, and 
at last, when they had become two huge little lakes, the larger 
from the slowness of their gathering, two mighty tears 
would tumble over the edges of their embankments, and'roll 
down her white mournful cheeks. This time many mere fol- 
lowed, and her eyes were fast becoming fountains, when all 
at once a verse she had heard the Sunday before at church 
seemed to come of itself into her head : “Call upon me in 
the time of trouble and I will answer thee. ” It must mean 
that she was to ask God to help her : was that the same as 
saying prayers.? But she wasn’t good and he wouldn’t hear 
anybody that wasn’t good. Then, if he was only the God of 
the good people, what was to become of the rest when they 
were lost on mountains ? She had better try ; it could not 
do much harm. Even if he would not hear her, he would 
not surely be angry with her for calling upon him when she 
was in such trouble. So thinking she began to pray to what 
dim distorted reflection of God there was in her mind. They 
alone pray to the real God, the maker of the heart that prays, 
who know his son Jesus. If our prayers were heard only in 
accordance with the idea of God to which we seem to our- 
selves to pray, how miserably would our infinite wants be 
met I But every honest cry, even if sent into the deaf ear of 


THE BEAST- BOY. l8l 

an idol, passes on to the ears of the unknown God, the heart 
of the unknown Father. 

“O God help me home again,” cried Ginevra, and stood 
up in her great lonliness to return. 

The same instant she spied, seated upon a stone, a little 
way off, but close to her path, the beast-boy. There could 
be no mistake. He was just as she had heard him described 
by the children at the gamekeeper’s cottage. That was his 
hair sticking all out from his head, though the sun in it made 
it look like a crown of gold or a shinning mist. Those were 
his bare arms, and that was dreadful indeed ! Bare legs and 
feet she was used to ; but bare arms ! Worst of all, making 
it absolutely certain he was the beast-boy, he was playing 
upon a curious kind of whistling thing, making dreadfully 
sweet music to entice her nearer that he might catch her and 
tear her to pieces ! Was this the answer that God sent to the 
prayers she had offered in her sore need — the beast-boy ? She 
asked him for protection and deliverance, and here was the 
Peast-boy ! she asked him to help her home, and there right in 
the middle of her path sat the beast-boy, waiting for her ! Well, 
it was just like what they said about him on Sundays in the 
churches, and in the books Miss Machar made her read ! But 
the horrid creature’s music should not have any power over her! 
She would rather run down to the black-water, glooming in 
those holes, and be drowned, than the beast-boy should have 
her to eat ! 

Most girls would have screamed, but such was not Ginny’s 
natural mode of meeting a difficulty. With fear she was far 
more likely to choke than to cry out. So she sat down again 
and stared at him. Perhaps he would go away when he found 
he could not entice her. He did not move, but kept playing 
on his curious instrument. Perhaps by returning into the hol- 
low, she could make a circuit, and so pass him lower down 
the hill. She rose at once and ran. 

Now Gibbie had seen her long before she had seen him, but 
from experience, was afraid of frightening her. He had therefore 
drawn gradually near, and sat as if unaware of her presence. 
Treating her as he would a bird with which he wanted to make 
better acquaintance, he would have her get accustomed to the 
look of him before he made advances. But when he saw her run 
in the direction of the swamp, knowing what a dangerous place it 
was, he was terrified, sprung to his feet, and darted off to get be- 
tween her and the danger. She heard him coming like the wind 
at her back, and whether from bewilderment, or that she did in- 
tend throwing herself into the water to escape him, instead of 


i 82 


SIR GIBBIE. 


pursuing lier former design, she made straight for the swamp. 
But was the beast-boy ubiquitous? As she approached the place-, 
there he was on the edge of a great hole half full of water, as if he 
had been sitting there for an hour ! Was he going to drown her in 
that hole? She turned again, and ran towards the descent of the 
mountain. But there Gibbie feared a certain precipitous spot ; 
and besides, there was no path in that direction. So Ginevra 
had not run far before again she saw him right in her way. 
She threw herself on the ground in despair and hid her face. 
After thus hunting her as a cat might a mouse, or a lion a 
man, what could she look for but that he would pounce 
upon her, and tear her to pieces? Fearfully expectant of the 
horrible grasp, she lay breathless. But nothing came. Still 
she lay, and still nothing came. Could it be that she was 
dreaming? In dreams generally the hideous thing never 
arrived. But she dared not look up. She lay and lay, 
weary and still, with the terror slowly ebbing away out of 
her. At length to her ears came a strange sweet voice of 
singing — such a sound as she had never heard before. It 
seemed to come from far away : what if it should be an 
angel God was sending, in answer after all to her prayer, to 
deliver her from the beast-boy ! He would of course want 
some time to come, and certainly no harm had happened to 
her yet. The sound grew and grew, and came nearer and 
nearer. But although it was song, she could distinguish no 
vowel-melody in it, nothing but a tone-melody, a crooning, 
as it were, ever upon one vowel in a minor key. It came 
quite near at length, and yet even then had something of the 
far away sound left in it. It was like the wind of a summer 
night inside a great church bell in a deserted tower. It came 
close, and ceased suddenly, as if, like a lark, the angel ceased 
to sing the moment he lighted. She opened her eyes and 
looked up. Over her stood the beast-boy, gazing down 
upon her! Could it really be the beast-boy? If so then he 
was fascinating her, to devour her the more easily, as she had 
read of snakes doing to birds ; but she could not believe it. 
Still — she could not take her eyes off him — that was certain. 
But no marvel 1 From under a great crown of reddish gold, 
looked out two eyes of heaven’s own blue, and through the 
eyes looked out something that dwells behind the sky and 
and every blue thing. What if the angel, to try her, had 
taken to himself the form of the beast-boy ? No beast-boy 
could sing like what she had heard, or look like what she 
now saw I She lay motionless, flat on the ground, her face 
burned sideways upon her hands, and her eyes fixed on the 


THE BEAST-BOY. 


183 


heavenly vision. Then a curious feeling began to wake in 
her of having seen him before — somewhere, ever so long 
ago — and that sight of him as well as this had to do with 
misery — with something that made a stain that would not 
come out. Yes — it was the very face, only larger, and still 
sweeter, of the little naked child whom Angus had so cruelly 
lashed ! That was ages ago, but she had not forgotten, and 
never could forget either the child’s back, or the lovely inno- 
cent white face that he turned round upon her. If it was 
indeed he, perhaps he would remember her. In any case, 
she was now certain he would not hurt her. 

While she looked at him thus, Gibbie’s face grew grave : 
seldom was his grave when fronting the face of a fellow- 
creature, but now he too was remembering, and trying 
to recollect ; as through a dream of sickness and pain he 
saw a face like the one before him, yet not the same. 

Ginevra recollected first, and a sweet slow diffident smile 
crept like a dawn up from the depth of her under-world to 
the sky of her face, but settled in her eyes, and made two 
stars of them. Then rose the very sun himself in Gibbie’s, 
and flashed a full response of daylight — a smile that no 
woman, girl, or matron, could mistrust. From brow to chin 
his face was radiant. The sun of this world had made his 
nest in his hair, but the smile below it seemed to dim the 
aureole he wore. Timidly yet trustingly Ginevra took one 
hand from under her cheek, and stretched it up to him. He 
clasped it gently. She moved, and he helped her to rise. 

“I’ve lost Nicie,” she said. 

Gibbie nodded, but did not look concerned. 

“Nicie is my maid,” said Ginevra. 

Gibbie nodded several times. He knew who Nicie was 
rather better than her mistress. 

‘ ‘ I left her away back there, a long, long time ago, and 
she has never come to me,” she said. 

Gibbie gave a shrill loud whistle that startled her. In a 
few seconds, from somewhere unseen, a dog came bounding 
to him over stones and heather. How he spoke to the dog, 
or what he told him to do, she had not an idea ; but the next 
instant Oscar was rushing along the path she had come, and 
was presently out of sight. So lull of life was Gibbie, so 
quick and decided was his every motion, so full of expression 
his every glance and smile, that she had not yet begun to 
wonder he had not spoken ; indeed she was hardly yet aware 
of the fact. She knew him now for a mortal, but, just as it 
had been with Donal and his mother, he continued to affect 


SIR GIBBIE. 


184 

her as a creature of some higher world,' come down on a 
mission of good-will to men. At the same time she had, 
oddly enough, a feeling as if the beast-boy were still some- 
where not far off, held aloof only by the presence of the 
angel who had assumed his shape. 

Gibbie took her hand, and led her towards the path she 
had left ; she yielded without a movement of question. But 
he did not lead her far in that direction ; he turned to the 
left up the mountain. It grew wilder as they ascended. But 
the air was so thin and invigorating, the changes so curious 
and interesting, as now they skirted the edge of a precipitous 
rock, now scrambled up the steepest of paths by the help of 
the heather that nearly closed over it. and the reaction of re- 
lief from the terror she had suffered so exciting, that she 
never for a moment felt tired. Then they went down the 
side of a little burn — a torrent when the snow was dissolving, 
and even now a good stream, whose dance and song de- 
lighted her : it was the same, as she learned afterwards, to 
whose song under her window she listened every night in bed, 
trying in vain to make out the melted tune. Ever after she 
knew this, it seemed, as she listened, to come straight from 
the mountain to her window, with news of the stars and the 
heather and the sheep. They crossed the burn and climbed 
the opposite bank. Then Gibbie pointed, and there was the 
cottage, and there was Nicie coming up the path to it, with 
Oscar bounding before her ! The dog was merry, but Nicie 
was weeping bitterly. They were a good way off, with 
another larger burn between ; but Gibbie whistled, and Oscar 
came flying to him. Nicie looked up, gave a cry, and like a 
sheep to her lost lamb came running. 

“Oh, missie!” she said, breathless, as she reached the 
opposite bank of the burn, and her tone had more than a 
touch of sorrowful reproach in it, ‘ ‘ what garred ye rin awa’ ?" 

“ There was a road, Nicie, and I thought you would come 
after me.” 

‘ ‘ I was a muckle geese, missie ; but eh ! I’m glaid I hae 
gotten ye. Come awa’ an’ see my mother.” 

“Yes, Nicie. We’ll tell her all about it. You see I 
haven’t got a mother to tell, so I will tell yours.” 

From that hour Nicie’s mother was a mother to Ginny as 
well. 

“ Anither o’ ’s lambs to feed !” she said to herself. 

If a woman be a mother she may have plenty of children. 

Never before had Ginny spent such a happy day, drunk 
such milk as Crummie’s, or eaten such cakes as Janet’s. She 


THE BE AST- BOY. 


185 


saw no itiore of Gibbie ; the moment she was safe, he and 
Oscar were olf again to the sheep, for Robert was busy cut- 
ting peats that day, and Gibbie was in sole charge. Eager 
to know about him, Ginevra gathered all that Janet could tell 
of his story, and in return told the little she had seen of it, 
which was the one dreadful point. 

“Is he a good boy. Mistress Grant?’’ she asked. 

“The best boy ever I kenned — Tetter nor my ain Donal, 
an’ he was the best afore him,” answered Janet. 

Ginny gave a little sigh, and wished she were good. 

“ Whan saw ye Donal ? ” asked Janet of Nicie. 

“No this lang time — no sin’ 1 was here last,” answered 
Nicie, who did not now get home so often as the rest. 

“I was thinkin’,” returned her mother, “ye sud ’maist see 
him noo frae the back o’ the muckle hoose ; for he was tell- 
in’ me he was wi’ the nowt’ i’ the new meadow upo’ the Lor- 
rie bank, ’at missie’s papa boucht frae Jeames Glass.” 

“Ow, is he there?” said Nicie. “I’ll maybe get sicht, 
gien I dinna get word o’ him. He cam ance to the kitchen- 
door to see me, but Mistress Mac Farlane wadna lat him in. 
She wad ’hae nae loons cornin’ aboot the place she said. I 
said ’at hoo he was my brither. She said, says she, that was 
naething to her, an’ she wad hae no brithers. My sister 
micht come whiles, she said, gien she camma ower aften ; 
but lasses had naething to dee wi’ brithers, Wha was to tell 
wha was or wha wasna my brither ? I tellt her ’at a’ my 
brithers was weel kenned for douce laads ; an’ she tellt me 
to baud my tongue, an’ no speyk up ; an’ I cud hae jist gien 
her a guid cloot o’ the lug — 1 was that angert wi’ her.’ 

“She’ll be soary for’t some day,” said Janet, with a quiet 
smile ; “an’ what a body’s sure to be soary for, ye may as 
weel forgie them at ance. 

“ Hoo ken ye, mither, she’ll be soary for’t?” asked Nicie, 
not very willing to forgive Mistress Mac Farlane. 

“ ’Cause the Maister says ’at we’ll hae to pey the uttermost 
fardin’. There’s naebody ’ill be latten aff. We maun dee 
oor neiper richt.” 

“But michtna the Maister himsel’ forgie her ?” suggested 
Nicie, a little puzzled. 

“ Lassie,” said her mother solemnly, “ye dinna surely 
think ’at the Lord’s forgifness is to lat folk aff ohn repentit ? 
ITat wad be a strange fawvor to grant them ! He winna 
hurt mail* nor he can help ; but the grue {Jiorror) maun mak 
w’y for the grace. I’m sure it was sae whan I gied you yer 
whups, lass. I’ll no say aboot some o’ the first o’ ye for at 


SIR GIBBIE. 


1 86 

that time I didna ken sae weel what I was aboot, an^' was 
mail angert whiles nor there was ony occasion for — tuik my 
beam to dang their motes. I hae been sair tribled aboot it, 
mony’s the time.” 

“Eh, mither!” said Nicie, shocked at the idea of her re- 
proaching herself about anything concerning her children, 
“Em weel sure there’s no one o’ them wad think, no to say 
‘ say, ’ sic a thing. ” 

‘ ‘ I daursay ye’re richt there, lass. I think whiles a wo- 
man’s bairn’s are like the God they cam frae — aye ready to 
forgie her onything.” 

Ginevra went home with a good many things to think 
about. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

THE LORRIE MEADOW. 

It was high time, according to agricultural economics, that 
Donal Grant should be promoted a step in the ranks of la- 
bor. A youth like him was fit for horses and their work, and 
looked idle in a field with cattle. But Donal was not ambit- 
ious, at least in that direction. He was more and more in 
love with books, and learning, and the music of thought and 
word ; and he knew well that no one doing a man’s work up- 
on a farm could have much time left for study — certainly not 
ai quarter of what the herd-boy could command. Therefore, 
with his parents approval, he continued to fill the humbler 
office, and receive the scantier wages belonging to it. 

The day following their adventure on Glashgar, in the af- 
ternoon, Nicie being in the grounds with her little mistress, 
proposed that they should look whether they could see her 
brother down in the meadow of which her mother had spo- 
ken. Ginevra willingly agreed, and they took their way 
through the shrubbery to a certain tall hedge which divided 
the grounds from a little grove of larches on the slope of a 
steep bank descending to the Lorrie, on the other side of 
which lay the meadow. It was a hawthorn hedge, very old, 
and near the ground very thin, so that they easily found a 
place to creep through. But they were no better on the other 
side, for the larches hid the meadow. They went down 
through them, therefore, to the bank of the little river — the 
largest tributary of the Daur from the roots of Glashgar. 

“ There he is ! ” cried Nicie. 


THE LORRIE MEADOW. 1 87 

“I see him,” responded Ginny, “ — with his cows all about 
the meadow.” 

Donal sat a little w^ay from the river, reading. 

“ He’s aye at ’s buik ! ” said Nicie. 

“ I wonder what book it is, ” said Ginny. 

“That wad be ill to say,” answered Nicie. “Donal reads a 
hantle o’ bulks — mair, his mither says, nor she doobts he 
can weel get the guid o.” 

“Do you think it’s Latin, Nicie?” 

“Ow ! I daursay. But no ; it canna be Latin — for, leuk ! 
he’s lauchin’, an’ he cudna dee that gien’ twar Latin. I’m 
thinkin’ it’ll be a story : there’s a heap o’ them prentit noo, 
they tell me. Or ’deed maybe it may be a sang. He thinks 
a heap o’ sangs. I h’ard my mither ance say she was some 
feard Donal micht hae ta’en to makin’ sangs himsel’; no* at 
there' was ony ill i’ that, she said, gien there wasna ony ill i* 
the sangs themsel’s; but it was jist sometrifflin’ like, she said, 
an’ they luikit for better frae Donal, wi’ a’ his bulk lear, an’ 
his Euclid — or what ca’ they’t ? — nor makin’ sangs. 

“ What’s Euclid, Nicie ?” 

“Ye may weel speir, missie ! but I hae ill tellin’ ye. It’s 
a keerious name till a buik, an’ min’s me o’ naething but 
whan the lid o’ yer e’e yeuks (itches); an’ as to what lies 
atween the twa brods o ’t, I ken no more nor the man i’ the 
meen.” 

“I should like to ask Donal what beek he h’s got,” seid 
Ginny; 

“I’ll cry till ’ im ye can speir,” said Nicie: — “ Donal ! — 
Donal !” 

Donal looked up, and seeing his sister, came running to 
the bank of the stream. 

“Cunna ye come ower, Donal?” said Nicie. “Here’s 
Miss Galbraith wants to spier ye a question. 

Donal was across in a moment, for here the water was no- 
where over a foot or two in depth. 

‘ ‘ Oh, Donal ! you’ve wet your feet ! ” cried Ginevra. 

Donal laughed. 

“ What ill ’ill that dee me, mem ? ” 

“None, I hope,” said Ginny; “but it might, you know.” 

“I micht hae been droont,” said Donal. 

“ Nicie,” said Ginny, with dignity, “your brother is laugh- 
ing at me. ” 

“Na, na, mem,” said Donal, apologetically. “I was only 
so glaid to see you an’ Nicie ’at 1 forgot my mainners. ” 


i88 


SIR GIBBIE. 


“Then,” returned Ginny, quite satisfied, would you 
mind telling me what book you were reading? ” 

“It’s a buik o’ ballants,” answered Donal. “I’ll read 
ane o’ them till ye, gien ye like, mem. ” 

“I should like very much,” responded Ginny. “I’ve read 
all my own books till I’m tired of them, and I don t like 
papa’s books. — And, do you know, Donal’ — Here the child- 
woman’s voice grew solem sad — “ — I’m very sorry, and I’m 
frightened to say it ; and if you wer’nt Nicie’s brother, I 
couldn’t say it to you ; — but I am very tired of the Bible 
too.” 

^ ‘ That ’s a peety, mem, ” replied Donal. ‘ T wad hae ye 
no tell onybody that ; for them ' at likes ’t no a hair better 
themsel’s, ’ill takye for waurnor a haithen forsayin’ ’t. Jist 
gang ye up to my mither, an’ tell her a ’ aboot it. She’s aye 
fair to a’ body, an’ never thinks ill o’ onbody ’at says the 
trowth — whan it’s no for contrariness. She says ’at a heap o’ 
ill comes* o ’ fowk no speyin’ oot what they ken, or what 
they’re thinkin, ’ but aye gussin’ at what they dinna ken, an ’ 
what ither fowk’s thinkin ’. ” 

“ Ay ! ” said Nicie, “it wad be a gey cheenged warl’ gien 
fowk gaed to my mither, an ’ did as she wad hae them. She 
says fowk sud never tell but the ill they ken o ’ themself ’s an’ 
the guid they ken o ’ ither fowk ; an ’ that’s jist the contrar ’, ye 
ken, missie, to what fowk maistly dis dee. ” 

A pause naturally followed, which Ginny broke. 

“I don’t think you told me the name of the book you were 
reading, Donal,” she said : 

“ Gien ye wad sit doon a meenute, mem, ” returned Donal, 
“ — here ’s a bonnie gowany spot — I wad read a bit till ye, an’ 
see gien ye likit it, afore I tell’t ye the name o’ ’t. ” 

She dropped at once on the little gowany bed, gathered 
her frock about her ankles, and said, 

“ Sit down, Nice. It’s so kind of Donal to read something 
to us ! I wonder what it’s going to be.” 

She uttered everything in a deliberate, old-fashioned way, 
with precise articulation, and a certain manner that an Engiish 
mother would have called priggish, but which was only the 
outcome of Scotch stiffness, her father’s rebukes, and her own 
sense of propriety. 

Donald read the ballad of Kemp Owen, 

“ I think — I think — I don’t think I understand it” said 
Ginevra. “It is very dreadful, and — and — I don’t know 
what to think. Tell me about it, Donal. — Do you know 
what it means, Nicie ? ” 


THE LORRIE MEADOW. 


189 


•• No ae giimp, missie, ” answered Nicie, 

Donai proceeded at once to an exposition. He told them 
that the serpent was a ladv, enchanted by a wicked witch, 
who, after she had changed her, twisted her three times round 
the tree, so that she could not undo herself, and laid the 
spell upon her that she should never have the shape of a 
woman, until a knight kissed her as often as she was twisted 
round the tree. Then, when the k night did come, at every 
kiss a coil of her body unwound itself, until, at the last kiss, 
she stood before him the beautiful lady she really was. 

“ What a good, kind, brave knight ! ” said Ginevra. 

But it’s no true, ye ken, missie, ” said Nicie, anxious 
that she should not be misled. “It’s naething but Donal’s 
nonsense.” 

“ Nonsense here, nonsense there !” said Donai, “I see a 
heap o’ sense intil ’t. But nonsense or no, Nicie, it’s name o 
my nonsense : I wuss it war. It’s hun’ers o ’ years auld, that 
ballant, I s’ warran’.” 

“ It’s beautiful, ” said Ginevra, with decision and dignity. 
“ I hope he married the lady, and they lived happy ever 
after. ” 

“I dinna ken, mem. The man ’at made the ballant, I 
daursay, thoucht him weel payed gein the bonny leddy said 
thank ye till him ” 

“ Oh ! but, Donai, that wouldn’t be enough ! — Would it, 
Nicie ? ” 

“Weel, ye see, missie, ” answered Nicie, “he but gae her 
three kisses — that wasna sae muckle to wur ( /ay out ) upon a 
body.” 

“ But a serpent ! — a serpent’s mouth, Nicie ! ” 

Here, unhappily, Donai had to rush through the burn with- 
out leave-taking, for Hornie was attempting a trespass ; and 
the two girls, thinking it was time to go home, rose, and 
climbed to the house at their leisure. 

The rest of the day Ginevra talked of little else than the ser- 
pent lady and the brave knight, saying now and then what a 
nice boy that Donai of Nicie’s was. Nor was more than the 
gentlest hint necessary to make Nicie remark, the next morn- 
ing, that perhaps, if they went dowm again to the Lorrie, Donai 
might come, and bring the book. But when they reached 
the bank and looked across, they saw him occupied with 
Gibbie. They had their heads close together over a slate, 
upon which now the one, now the other, seemed to be draw- 
ing. This went on and on, and they never looked up. 
Ginny would have gone home, and come again in the after* 


190 


SIR GIBBIE. 


noon, but Nicie instantly called Donal. He sprang to his 
feet and came to them, followed by Gibbie. Donal cross- 
ed the burn, but Gibbie remained on the other side, and 
when presently Donal took his ‘'bulk o’ ballants” from his 
pocket, and the little company seated themselves, stood with 
his back to them, and his eyes on the niowt. That morning 
they were not interrupted. 

Donal read to them for a whole hour, concerning which 
reading, and Ginevra’s reception of it, Nicie declared she could 
not see what for they made sic a wark aboot a wheen auld 
ballants, ane efter anither — “ The’re no half sae bonnie as 
the paraphrases, Donal, ” she said. 

After this, Ginevra went frequently with Nicie to see her 
mother, and learned much of the best from her. Often also 
they went down to the Lorrie, and had an interview with 
Donal, which was longer or shorter as Gibbie was there or 
not to release him. 

Ginny’s life was now far happier than it had ever been. New 
channels of thought and feeling were opened, new questions 
were started, new interests awaked ; so that instead of losing 
by Miss Machar’s continued inability to teach her, she was 
learning far more than she could give her, learning it, too 
with the pleasure which invariably accompanies true learn- 
ing 

Little more than child as she was, Donal felt from the first 
the charm of her society ; and she by no meams received 
without giving, for his mental development was greatly ex- 
pedited thereby. Few weeks passed before he was her hum- 
ble squire, devoted to her with all the chivalry of a youth for 
a girl whom he supposed as much his superior in kind as she 
is in worldly position ; his sole advantage, in his own judge- 
ment, and that which alone procured him the privilege of her 
society, being, that he was older, and therefore knew a littk 
more. So potent and genial was her influence on his imagb 
nation, that, without once thinking of her as their object, he 
now first found himself capable of making verses — such as 
they were ; and one day, with his book before him — it was 
Burns, and he had been reading the Gowan poem to Ginevra 
and his sister — he ventured to repeat, as if he read them from 
the book, the following : they halted a little, no doubt, in 
rhythm, neither were perfectly rimed, but for a beginning, 
they had promise. Gibbie, who had thrown himself down on 
the other bank, and lay listening, at once detected the change 
in the tone of his utterance, and before he ceased had couv 


THE LORRIE MEADOW. 


I9I 

eluded that he was not reading them, and that they were his 
own. 


Rin, bumie ! clatter ; 

To the sea win : 

Gien I was a watter, 

Sae wad I rin. 

Blaw, win’, caller, clean! 

Here an’ hyne awa’; 
Gien 1 was a win’, 
Wadna I blaw ! 

Shine, auld sun, 

Shine strang an’ fine : 
Gien I was the sun’s son, 
Herty I wad shine. 


Hardly had he ended, when Gibbie’s pipe began from the 
opposite side of the water, and, true to time and cadence and 
feeling, followed with just the one air to suit the song — from 
which Donal, to his no small comfort, understood that one 
at least of his audience had received his lilt. If the poorest 
nature in the world responds with the true to the mighiest 
master’s song, he knows, if not another echo should come 
back, that he has uttered a true cry. But Ginevra had not 
received it, and being therefore of her own mind, and not of 
the song’s, was critical. It is of the true things it does not, 
perhaps cannot receive, that human nature is most critical. 

“That one is nonsense, Donal,” she said. “ Isn’t it now? 
How could a man be a burn, or a wind, or the sun ? But 
poets are silly. Papa says so.” 

In his mind Donal did not know which way to look ; 
physically, he regarded the ground. Happily at that very 
moment Hornie caused a diversion, and Gibbie understood 
what Donal was feeling too well to make even a pretence of 
going alter her. I must, to his praise, record the fact that, 
instead of wreaking his mortification upon the cow, Donal 
spared her several blows out of gratitude for the deliverance 
her misbehavior had wrought him. He was in no haste to 
return to his audience. To have his first poem thus rejected 
was killing. She was but a child who had so unkindly crit- 
icized it, but she was the child he wanted to please ; and for 
a few moments life itself seemed scarcely worth having. He 
called himself a fool, and resolved never to read another poem 
to a girl so long as he lived. By the time he had again walk- 


193 


SIR GIBBIE. 


ed through the burn, however, he was calm and comparatively 
wise, and knew what to say. 

“ Div ye hear yon burn efter ye gang to yer bed, mem ?'’he 
asked Genevra, as he climbed the bank, pointing a little lower 
down the stream to the mountain brook which there joined 
it. 

“Always,” she answered. “ It runs right under my win- 
dow.” 

“What kin’ o’ din dis’t mak’ ?” he asked again. 

“ It is different at different times, ” she answered. “It sings 
and chatters in summer, and growls and cries and grumbles 
in winter, or after rain up in Glashgar. ” 

“Div ye think, the burn’s ony happier i’ the summer, 
mem ?” 

“No, Donal ; the burn has no life in it, and therefore 
can’t be happier one time than another.” 

“Weel, mem, I wad jist like to speir what waur it is to 
fancy yersel’ a burn, than to fancy the burn a body, ae time 
singin’ an’ chatterin’, an’ the neist growlin’ an’ grum’lin’.” 

“ Well, but, Donal, can a man be a burn?” 

“Weel, mem, no — at least noi’ his warl’, an’ at ’is ain 
wull. But whan ye’re lyin’ hearkin’ to the burn, did ye never 
imagine yersel’ rinnin’ doon wi’ ’t — doon to the sea ? ” 

“No, Donal ; I always fancy myself going up the mountain 
where it comes from, and running about wild there in the 
wind, when all the time I know I’m safe and warm in bed.” 

“Weel, maybe that’s better yet — I wadna say,” answered 
Donal; “but jist the nicht, for a cheenge like, ye turn an 
gang doon wi’ ’i yer thouchts, I mean. Lie an’ hearken 
he’rty till ’t the nicht, whan ye’er i’ yer bed ; hearken an’ 
hearken till the soon’ rins awa’ wi’ ye like, an’ ye forget a’ 
aboot yersel’, an’ think yersel’ awa’ wi’ the burn, rinnin’, 
rinnin’, throu’ this an’ throu’ that’ throu’ stanes an’ birks ani ’ 
bracken, throu’ heather, an’ pooled Ian’ an’ corn, an’ wuds 
an’ gairdens, ays singin’, an’ aye cheengin’ yer tune accordin’, 
till it wins to the muckle roarin’ sea, an’ ’s a’ tint. An’ he 
first nicht ’at the win’ ’s up an’ awa’, dee the same, mem, wi’ 
the win’. Get up upo’ the back o’ ’i, like, as gien it was yer 
rnuckle horse, an’ jist ride him to the deith ; an’ efter that, 
gien ye dinna maybe jist wuss ’at ye wuss a burn or a blawin’ 
— aither wad be a sair loss to the universe — ye wunna, 
I’m thinkin’, be sae ready to fin’ fau’t wi’ the chield ’at made 
yon bit sangy.” 

“Are you vexed with me Donal.? — I’m so sorrvV* said 
Ginevra, taking the earnestness of his tone for displeasure. 


THE LORRIE MEADOW. 


193 


•"^Na, na, mem. Ye’er ower guid an’ ower bonny,” 
answered Donal, “to be a vex to onybody ; but it wad be a 
vex to hear sic a cratur as you speykin’ like ane o’ the fules 
o’ the warl’, ’at believe i’ naething but what comes in at the 
holes i’ their heid. ” 

Ginevra was silent. She could not quite understand 
Donal, but she felt she must be wrong somehow ; and of 
this she was the more convinced when she saw the beautiful 
eyes of Gibbie fixed in admiration, and brimful of love, 
upon Donal. 

The way Donal kept his vow never to read another poem 
of his own to a girl, was to proceed that very night to make 
another for the express purpose, as he lay awake in the 
darkness. 

The last one he ever read to her in the meadow was i 


What gars ye sing, said the herd laddie. 
What gars ye sing sae lood ? 

To tice them oot o’ the yerd, laddie. 
The worms, for my daily food. 


An’ aye he sang, an’ better he sang, 
An’ the worms creepit in an’ oot ; 
An’ ane he tuik, an’ twa he loot gang. 
But still he carolled stoot. 


It’s no for the worms, sir, said the herd, 

They comena for yer sang. 

Think ye sae, sir ? answered the bird. 

Maybe ye’re no i’ the wrang. 

But aye, &c. 

Sing ye yoong sorrow to beguile 
Or to gie auld fear the flegs ? 

Ka, quo’ the mavis ; it’s but to wile 
My wee things oot o’ her eggs. 

An’ aye, &c. 

The mistress is plenty for that same gear. 
Though ye sangna ear’ nor late. 

It’s to draw the deid frae the moul’ sae drear^ 
An’ open the kirkyard gate. 

An’ aye, &c. 

Na, na ; it’s a better sang nor yer ain. 
Though ye hae o’ notes a feck, 

*At wad mak auld Barebanes there sae fain 
As to lift the muckle sneck ! 

But aye, &c. 


SIR GIBBIE. 


^V-4 

Better ye sing nor a burn i’ the mune, 

Nor a wave ower san’ that flows, 

Nor a win’ wi’ the glintin’ stars abune, 

An’ aneth the roses in rows ; 

An’ aye, &c. 

But I’ll speir ye nae mair, sir, said the herd. 

I fear what ye micht say neist. 

Ye wad but won’er the mair, said the bird. 

To see the thouchts i’ my breist. 

An’ aye he sang, an’ better he sang, 

An’ the worms creepit in an’ oot ; 

An’ ane he tuik, an’ twa he loot gang. 

But still he carolled stoot. 

I doubt whether Ginevra understood this song better than 
the first, but she was now more careful of criticising; and 
when by degrees it dawned upon her that he was the maker 
of these and other verses he read, she grew half afraid of 
Donal, and began to regard him with big eyes ; he became, 
from a herd-boy, an unintelligible person, therefore a wonder. 
For, brought thus face to face with the maker of verses, she 
could not help trying to think how he did the thing ; and as 
she felt no possibility of making verses herself, it remained a 
mystery and an astonishment, causing a great respect for the 
poet to mingle with the kindness she felt towards Nicies 
brother. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

THEIR REWARD. 

By degrees Gibbie had come to be well known about the 
JMains and Glashruach. Angus’s only recognition of him 
was a scowl in return for his smile ; but, as I have said, he 
gave him no farther annoyance, and the tales about the 
beast-loom were dying out from Daurside. ' Jean Mavor was 
a special friend to him : for she knew now well enough who 
"had been her brownie, and made him welcome as often as he 
showed himself with Donah Fergus was sometimes at home ; 
soma times away ; but he was now quite a fine gentleman, a 
student of theology, and only conscendingly cognizant of the 
existence of Donal Grant. All he said to him when he came 
home a Master of Arts, was, that . he had e.\pected better of 


THE LORRIE MEADOW. 


195 


him ; he ought to be something more than herd by this time. 
Donal smiled and said nothing. He had just finished a little 
song that pleased him, and could afford lo be patronized. I 
am afraid, however, he was not contented with that, but in 
his mind’s eye measured Fergus from top to toe. 

In the autumn, Mr. Galbraith returned to Glasruach, but 
did not remain long. His scheme were promising well, and 
his self-importance was screwed yet a little higher in conse- 
quence. But he was kinder than usual to Ginevra. Before 
he went he said to her that, as Mr. Machar had sunk into a 
condition requiring his daughters constant attention, he 
would find her an English governess as soon as he reached 
London ; meantime she must keep up her studies by herself 
as well as she could. Probably he forgot all about it, for the 
governess was not heard of at Glashruach, and things fell into 
their old way. There was no spiritual traffic between the 
father and daughter, consequently Ginevra never said anything 
about Donal or Gibbie, or her friendship for Nicie. He had 
himself to blame altogether ; he had made it impossible for 
her to talk to him. But it was well he remained in ignor- 
ance, and so did not put a stop to the best education she 
could at this time of her life have been having — such as neither 
he nor any friend of his could have given ber. 

It was interrupted, however, by the arrival of the winter — a 
wild time in that region, fierce storms alternating with the 
calm of death. After howling nights, in which it seemed as 
if all the polter-geister of the universe must be out on a dis- 
embodied lark, the mountains stood there in the morning 
solemn still, each with his white turban of snow unrumpled 
on his head, in the profoundest silence of blue air, as if he had 
never in his life passed a more thoughtful, peaeeful time than 
the very last night of all. To such feet as Ginevra’s the cot- 
tage on Glashgar was for months almost inaccessible as if it 
had been in Sirius. More than once the Daur was frozen 
thick ; for weeks every beast was an absolute prisoner to the 
byre, and for months was fed with' straw and turnips and 
potatoes and oilcake. Then was the time for stories ; and 
often in the long dark, while yet it was hours too early for 
bed, would Ginevra go to Nicie, who was not much of a 
raconteuse, to the kitchen, to get one of the other servants to 
tell her an old tale. For even in his own daughter and his 
own kitehen, the great laird could not extinguish the accursed 
supersition. Not a glimpse did Ginevra get all this time of 
Donal or of Gibbie. 

At last like one of its own flowers in its own bosom, the 


SIR GIBEIE. 


196 

spring began again to wake in God's thought of his world ; 
and the snow, like all other deaths, had to melt and run, 
leaving room for hope ; then the summer woke smiling, as if 
she knew she had been asleep ; and the two youths and the 
two maidens met yet again on Lorrie bank, with the brown 
water falling over the stones, the gold nuggets of the broom 
hanging over the water, and the young larch-wood scenting 
the air all up the brae side between them and the house, 
which the tall hedge hid from their view. The four were a 
year older, a year nearer trouble, and a year nearer getting cut 
of it. Ginevra was more of a woman, Donal more of a poet, 
Nicie as nice and much the same, and Gibbie, if possible, 
more a foundling of the universe than ever. He was growing 
steadily, and showed such freedom and ease, and his motions 
were all so rapid and direct, that it was plain at a ^glance the 
beauty of his countenance was in no manner or measure 
associated with weakness. The mountain was a grand nur- 
sery for him, and the result, both physical and spiritual, cor- 
responded. Janet who better than anyone else, knew what 
was in the mind of the boy, revered him as much as he re- 
vered her ; the first impression he made upon her had never 
worn off — had only changed its color a little. More even than 
a knowledge of the truth, is a readiness to receive it ; and 
Janet saw from the first that Gibbie's ignorance at its worst 
was but room vacant for the truth ; when it came it found 
bolt nor bar on door or window, but had immediate entrance. 
The secret of this power of reception was that to see a truth 
and to do it was one and the same thing with Gibbie. To 
know and not do would have seemed to him an impossibility 
as it is in vital idea a monstrosity. 

This unity of vision and action was the main cause also of 
a certain daring simplicity in the exercise of the imagination, 
which so far from misleading him reacted only in obedience 
— which is the truth of the will — the truth, therefore, of the 
whole being. He did not do the less well for his sheep, that 
he fancied they knew when Jesus Christ was on the mountain, 
and always at such times both fed better and were more frol- 
icsome. He thought Oscar knew it also, and interpreted a 
certain look of the dog by the supposition that he had caught 
a sign of the bodily presence or his Maker. The direction in 
which his imagination ran forward, was always that in which 
his reason pointed ; and so long asGibbie’s fancies were bud- 
blooms upon his obedience, his imagination could not be 
otherwise than in harmony with his reason. Imagination is 
a poor root, but a worthy blossom, and in a nature like Gib- 


THEIR REWARD. 


197 


bie's its flowers cannot fail to be lovely. For no outcome of 
a man’s nature is so like himself as his imaginations, except 
it be his fancies, indeed. Perhaps his imaginations show 
what he is meant to be, his fancies what he is making of him- 
self. 

In the summer, Mr. Galbraith, all unannounced, reap- 
peared at Glashruach, but so changed that, startled at the 
sight of him, Ginevra stopped midway in her advance to greet 
him. The long thin man was now haggard and worn ; he 
looked sourer too, and more suspicious — either that experi- 
ence had made him so, or that he was less equal to the veil- 
ing of his feelings in dignified indifference. He was annoyed 
that his daughter should recognize an alteration in him, and, 
turning away, leaned his head on the hand whose arm was 
already supported by the mantlepiece, and took no further 
notice of her presence ; but perhaps conscience also had 
something to do with this behavior. Ginevra knew from ex- 
perience that the sight of tears would enrage him, and with 
all her might repressed those she felt beginning to rise. She 
went up to him timidly, and took the hand that hung by his 
side. He did not repel her — that is, he did not push her 
away, or even withdraw his hand, but he left it hanging life- 
less, and returned with it no pressure upon hers — which was 
much worse. 

“Is anything the matter, papa.?” she asked with trembling 
voice. 

“ I am not aware that I have been in the habit of commu- 
nicating with you on the subject of my affairs,” he answered ; 
“ nor am I likely to begin to do so, where my return after so 
long an absence seems to give so little satisfaction.” 

“ Oh, papa ! I was frightened to see you looking so ill.” 

“ Such a remark upon my personal appearance is but a 
poor recognition of my labors for your benefit, I venture to 
think, Jenny,” he said. 

He was at the moment comtemplating, as a necessity, the 
sale of every foot of the property her mother had brought 
him. Nothing less would serve to keep up his credit, and 
gain time to disguise more than one failing scheme. Every- 
thing had of late been going so badly, that he had lost a 
good deal of his confidenee and self-satisfaction : but he had 
gained no humility instead. It had not dawned upon him 
yet that he was not unfortunate, but unworthy. The gain of 
Such a conviction is to a man enough to outweigh infinitely 
any loss that even his unworthiness can have caused him ; 
for it involves some perception of the worthiness of the truth, 


SIR GIBBIE. 


198 

and makes way for the utter consolation which the birth of 
that truth in himself will bring. As yet Mr. Galbraith was 
but overwhelmed with care for a self which, so far as he had 
to do with the making of it, was of small value indeed, al- 
though in the possibility, which is the birthright of every crea- 
ture, it was, not less than that of the wretchedness of dog- 
licked Lazaruses, of a value by himself unsuspected and in- 
appreciable. That he should behave so cruelly to his one 
child, was not unnatural to that self with which he was so 
occupied : failure had weakened that command of behavior 
which so frequently gains the credit belonging only- to justice 
and kindness, and a temper which never was good, but 
always feeling the chain, was ready at once to show its ugly 
teeth. He was a proud man, whose pride was always catch- 
ing cold from his heart, . He might have lived a hundred 
years in the same house with a child that was not his own, 
without feeling for her a single movement of affection. 

The servants found more change in him than Ginevra did ; 
his relations with them, if not better conceived than his pater- 
nal ones, had been less evidently defective. Now he found 
fault with every one, so that even Joseph dared hardly open 
his mouth, and said he must give warning. The day after 
his arrival, having spent the morning with Angus, walking 
over certain fields, much desired, he knew, of a neighbor- 
ing proprietor, inwardly calculating the utmost he could ven- 
ture to ask for them with a chance of selling, he scolded Gin- 
evra severely on his return because she had not had lunch, 
but had waited for him ; whereas a little reflection might 
have shown him she dared not take it without him. Natur- 
ally, therefore, she could not now eat, because of a certain 
sensation in her throat. The instant he saw she was not eat- 
ing, he ordered her out of the room ; he would have no such 
airs in his family ! By the end of the week — he arrived on 
the Tuesday — such a sense of estrangement possessed Gin- 
evra, that she would turn on the stair and run up again, if 
she heard her father's voice below. Her aversion to meeting 
him, he became aware of, and felt relieved in regard to the 
wrong he was doing his wife, by reflecting upon her daugh- 
ter’s behavior towards him ; for he had a strong constitu- 
tional sense of what was fair, and a conscience disobeyed be- 
comes a cancer. 

In this evil mood he received from some one — all his life 
Donal believed it was Fergus — a hint concerning the rela- 
tions between his daughter and his tenant’s herd-boy. To 
describe his feelings at the bare fact that such a hint was 


THEIR REWARD, 


199 


possible, would be more labor than the result woiiFd repay. 
— What ! his own flesh and blood, the heiress of Glashruach, 
derive pleasure from the boorish talk of such a companion ! 
It could not be true, when the mere thought, .without the 
belief of it, filled him with such indignation ! He was over- 
whelmed with a righteous disgust. He did himself the 
justice of making himself certain before he took measures ; 
but he never thought of doing them the justice of acquainting 
himself first with the nature of the intercourse they held. 
But it mattered little ; for he would have found nothing in 
that to give him satisfaction, even if the thing itself had not' 
been outrageous. He watched and waited, and more than 
once pretended to go from home : at last one morning, from 
the larch-wood, he saw the unnatural girl seated with her 
maid on the bank of the river, the cow-herd reading to them, 
and on the other side the dumb idiot lying listening. He 
was almost beside himself — with what, I can hardly define. 
In a loud voice of bare command he called to her to come 
to him. With a glance of terror at Nicie she rose, and they 
w^ent up through the larches together. 

. I will not spend my labor upon a reproduction of the 
verbal torrent of wrath, wounded dignity, disgust, and con- 
tempt, with which the father assailed his shrinking, delicate, 
honest-minded woman child. For Nicie, he dismissed her 
on the spot. Not another night would he endure her in the 
house, after her abominable breach of confidence ! She had 
to depart without even a good-bye from Ginevra, and went 
home weeping, in great dread of what her mother would say. 

‘‘Lassie,'* said Janet, when she heard her own story, “gien 
onybody be to blame it's mysel' for ye loot me ken 3^e gaed 
whiles wi' yer bonnie missie to hae a news wi’ Donah an' I 
saw an' see moucht 'at's wrang intil't. But the fowk o' this 
warl' has ither w'ys oi jeedgin o' things, an' I maun bethink 
mysel' what lesson o' the serpent's wisdom I hae to learn frae 
’t. Ye'er walcome hame, my bonnie lass. Ye ken I aye 
keep the wee closet, ready for ony o' ye 'at micht come ohn 
expeckit." 

Nicie, however, had not long to occupy the closet, for 
those of her breed were in demand in the country. 


200 


SIR GIBBIE. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

PROLOGUE. 

Ever since he became a dweller in the air of Glashgar, 
Gibbie, mindful of his first visit thereto, and of his grand 
experience on that occasion, had been in the habit, as often 
as he saw reason to expect a thunder-storm, and his duties 
would permit, of ascending the mountain, and there on the 
crest of the granite peak, awaiting the arrival of the tumult. 
Everything antagonistic in the boy, everything that could 
naturally find relief, or pleasure, or simple outcome, in 
resistance or contention, debarred as it was by the exuber- 
ance of his loving kindness from obtaining satisfaction or 
alleviation in strife with his fellows, found it wherever he 
could encounter the forces of Nature, in personal wrestle 
with them where possible, and always in wildest sympathy 
with any uproar of the elements. The absence of personality 
in them allowed the co-existence of sympathy and antagonism 
in respect of them. Except those truths awaking delight at 
once calm and profound, of which so few know the power, 
and the direct influence of human relation, Gibbie’s emo- 
tional joy was more stirred by storm than by anything else ; 
and with all forms of it he was so familiar that, young as he 
was, he had unconsciously begun to generalize on its phrases. 

Towards the evening of a wondrously fine day in the 
beginning of August — a perfect day of summer in her ma- 
tronly beauty, it began to rain. All the next day the slopes 
and stairs of Glashgar were alternately glowing in sunshine, 
and swept with heavy showers, driven slanting in strong gusts 
of wind from the northwest. How often he was wet through 
and dried again that day, Gibbie could not have told. He 
wore so little that either took but a few moments, and he was 
always ready for a change. The wind and the rain together 
were cold, but that only served to let the sunshine deeper 
into him when he returned. 

In the afternoon there was less sun, more rain, and wind ; 
and at last the sun seemed to give it up ; the wind grew to a 
hurricane, and the rain strove with it which should inhabit 
the space. The whole upper region was like a huge mortar, 
in which the wind was the pestle, and, with innumerable 


PROLOGUE. 


201 


gyres, vainly ground at the rain. Gibbie drove his sheep to 
the refuge of a pen on the lower slope of a valley that ran at 
right angles to the wind, where they were sheltered by a rock 
behind, forming one side of the enclosure, and dykes of loose 
stones, forming the others, at a height there was no tradition 
of any flood having reached. He then went home, and hav- 
ing told Robert what he had done, and had his supper, set out 
in the early-falling light, to ascend the mountain. A great 
thunder-storm was at hand, and was calling him. It was al- 
most dark before he reached the top, but he knew the surface 
of Glashgar nearly as well as the floor of the cottage. Just as 
he had fought his way to the crest of the peak in the face of 
one of the fiercest of the blasts abroad that night, a sudden 
rush of fire made the heavens like the smoke-filled vault of 
an oven, and at once the thunder followed, in a succession 
of single sharp explosions without any roll between. The 
mountain shook with the windy shocks, but the first of the 
thunder-storm was the worst, and it soon passed. The wind 
and the rain continued, and the darkness was filled with the 
rush of water everywhere wildly tearing down the sides of the 
mountain. Thus heaven and earth held communication in 
torrents all the night. Down the steeps of the limpid air they 
ran to the hard sides of the hills, where at once, as if they 
were no longer at home, and did not like the change, they 
began to work mischief. To the ears and heart of Gibbie 
their noises were a mass of broken music. Every spring and 
autumn the floods came, and he knew them, and they were 
welcome to him in their seasons. 

It required some care to find his way down through the 
darkness and the waters to the cottage, but as he was neither 
in fear nor in haste, he was in little danger, and his hands 
and feet could pick out the path where his eyes were useless. 
When at length he reached his bed, it was not for a long time 
to sleep, but to lie awake and listen to the raging of the wind 
all about and above and below the cottage, and the rushing 
of the streams down past it on every side. To his imagina- 
tion it was as if he lay in the very bed of the channel by 
which the waters of heaven were shooting to the valleys of 
the earth ; and when he fell asleep at last, his dream was of 
the rush of the river of the water of life, from under the 
throne of God ; and he saw men drink thereof, and everyone 
as he drank straightway knew that he was one with the 
Father, and one with every child of his throughout the infinite 
universe. 

He woke, and what remained of his dream was love in his 


202 


SIR GIBBIE. 


heart, and in his ears the sound of many waters. It was 
morning. He rose, and, dressing hastily, opened the door. 
What a picture of grey storm rose outspread before him ! 1 he 
wind fiercely invaded the cottage, thick charged with water- 
drops, and stepping out he shut the door in haste, lest it 
should blow upon the old people in bed and wake them. He 
could not see far on any side, for the rain that fell, and the 
mist and steam that arose, upon which the wind seemed to 
have no power ; but wherever he did see, there water was 
running down. Up the mountain he went — he could hardly 
have told why. Once, for a moment, as he ascended, the 
veil of the vapor either rose, or was torn asunder, arid he saw 
the great wet gleam of the world below. By the time he 
reached the top, it was as light as it was all the day ; but it 
was with a dull yellow glare, as if the sun were obscured by 
the smoke and vaporous fumes of a burning world which the 
rain had been sent to quench. It w^as a wild hopeless scene 
— as if God had turned his face away from the world, and all 
Nature was therefore drowned in tears — no Rachel weeping 
for her children, but the whole creation crying for the Father, 
and refusing to be comforted. Gibbie stood gazing and 
thinking. Did God like to look at the storm he made? If 
Jesus did, would he have left it all and gone to sleep, when 
the wind and waves were howling, and flinging the boat about 
like a toy betw'een them ? He must have been tired, surely I 
With what ? Then first Gibbie saw that perhaps it tired Jesus 
to heal people ; that every time what cured man or woman 
was life that went out of him, and that he missed it, perhaps 
— not from his heart, but from his body ; and if it were so, 
then it was no wonder if he slept in the midst of a right 
splendid storm. And upon that Gibbie remembered what 
St. Matthew sa)'s just before he tells about the storm — that 
“he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that 
were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by 
Esaias the prophet, saying. Himself took our infirmities, and 
bare our sicknesses.'' 

That moment it seemed as if he must be himself in some 
wave-tossed boat, and not upon a mountain of stone, for 
Glashgar gave a great heave under him, then rocked and 
shook from side to side a little, and settled down so still and 
steady, that motion and the mountain seemed again two ideas 
that never could be present together in any mind. The next 
instant came an explosion, followed by a frightful roaring and 
hurling, as of mingled water and stones ; and on the side of 
the mountain beneath him he saw what, through the mist. 


PROLOGUE. 


203 


looked like a cloud of smoke or dust rising to a height. He 
darted towards it. As he drew nearer, the cloud seemed to 
condense, and presently he saw plainly enough that it was a 
great column of water shooting up and out from the face of 
the mountain. It sank and rose again, with the alternation 
of a huge pulse : the mountain was cracked, and through 
the crack, with every throb of its heart, the life-blood of the 
great hull of the world seemed beating out. Already it had 
scattered masses of gravel on all sides, and down the hill a 
river was shooting in sheer cataract, raving and tearing and 
carrying stones and rocks with it like foam. Still and still it 
pulsed and rushed and ran, born, like another Xanthus, a 
river full-grown, from the heart of the mountain. 

Suddenly Gibbie, in the midst of his astonishment and awful 
delight, noted the path of the new stream, and from his 
knowledge of the face of the mountain, perceived that 
its course was direct for the cottage. Down the hill he 
shot after it, as if it were a wild beast that his fault had freed 
from its cage. He was not terrified. One believing like him 
in the perfect Love and perfect Will of a Father of men, as 
the fact of facts, fears nothing. Fear is faithlessness. But 
there is so little that is worthy the name of faith, that such a 
confidence will appear to most not merely incredible but 
heartless. The Lord himself seems not to have • been very 
hopeful about us, for he said. When the Son of man cometh 
shall he find faith on the earth ? A perfect faith would lift us 
absolutely above fear. It is in the cracks, crannies, and 
gulfy faults of our belief, the gaps that are not faith, that the 
snow of apprehension settles, and the ice of unkindness 
forms. 

The torrent had already worn for itself a channel : what 
earth there was, it had swept clean away to the rock, and the 
loose stones it had thrown up aside, or hurled with it in its 
headlong course. But as Gibbie bounded along, following it 
with a speed almost equal to its own, he was checked in the 
midst of his hearty haste by the sight, a few yards away, of 
another like terror — another torrent issuing from the side of 
the hill, and rushing to swell the valley stream. Another and 
another he saw, with growing wonder, as he ran ; before he 
reached home he passed some six or eight, and had begun to 
think whether a second deluge of the whole world might not 
be at hand, commencing this time with Scotland. Two of 
them joined the one he was following, and he had to cross 
them as he could ; the others he saw near and farther off— - 
one foaming deliverance after another, issuing from the en- 


204 


SIR GIBBIE, 


trails of the mountain, like imprisoned demons, that, broken 
from their bonds, ran to ravage the world with the accumu- 
lated hate of dreariest centuries. Now and then a huge 
boulder, loosened from its bed by the trail of this or that wa- 
tery serpent, would go rolling, leaping, bounding down the 
hill before him, and just in time he escaped one that came 
springing after him as if it were a living thing that wanted to 
devour him. Nor was Glashgar the only torrent-bearing 
mountain of Gormgarnet that day though the rain prevented 
Gibbie from seeing anything of what the rest of them were 
doing. The fountains of the great deep were broken up, and 
seemed rushing together to drown the world. And still the 
wind was raging, and the rain tumbling to the earth, rather in 
sheets than in streams, 

Gibbie at length forsook the bank of the new torrent to 
take the nearest way home, and soon reached the point 
whence first, returning in that direction, he always looked to 
see the cottage. For a moment he was utterly bewildered ; 
no cottage was to be seen. From the top of the rock against 
which it was built, shot the whole mass of the water he had 
been pursuing, now dark with stones and gravel, now grey 
with foam, or glassy in the lurid light. 

“O Jesus Christ!'’ he cried, and darted to the place. 
When he came near, to his amazement there stood the little 
house unharmed, the very center of the cataract I For a few 
yards on the top of the rock, the torrent had a nearly horri- 
zontal channel, along which it rushed with unabated speed to 
the edge, and thence shot clean over the cottage, dropping 
only a dribble of rain on the roof from the underside of its 
half-arch. The garden ground was gone, swept clean from 
the bare rock, which made a fine smooth shoot for the water 
a long distance in front. He darted through the drizzle and 
spray, reached the door, and lifted the hatch. The same mo- 
ment he heard Janet’s voice in joyful greeting. 

“Noo, noo ! come awa’, laddie,” she said. “Wha wad 
hae thoucht we wad hae to lea’ the rock to win oot o’ the wa- 
ter.? We’re but waitin’ you to gang. — Come, Robert, we’ll 
awa’ doon the hill.” 

She stood in the middle of the room in her best gown, as if 
she had been going to church, her Bible, a good-sized octavo, 
under her arm, with a white handkerchief folded round it, 
and her umbrella in her hand. 

“He that believeth shall not make haste,” she said, “but 
he^maunna tempt the Lord, aither. Drink that milk, Gibbie, 
an’ pit a bannock i’ yer pooch, an’ come awa’.” 


PROLOGUE. 


205 


Robert rose from the edge of the bed, staff in hand, ready 
too. He also was in his Sunday clothes. Oscar, who could 
make no change of attire, but was always ready, and had 
been standing looking up in his face for the last ten minutes, 
wagged his tale when he saw him rise and got out of his way. 
On the table were the remains of their breakfast of oat-cake 
and milk — the fire Janet had left on the hearth was a spongy 
mass of peat, as wet as the winter before it was dug from the 
bog, so they had had no porridge. The water kept coming 
in splashes down the lum, the hillocks of the floor were slimy 
and in the hollows little lakes were gathering : the lowest film 
of the torrent-water ran down the rock behind, and making 
its way between rock and roof, threatened soon to render the 
place uninhabitable. 

“ What’s the eese o’ lo’dennin; yerself’ wi’ the umbrell V* 
said Robert. ‘‘Ye’ll get it a’ drookit {drenched.)” 

“ Ow, I’ll jist tak it, ” replied Janet, with a laugh in 
acknowledgement of her husband’s fun; “it ’ll haun the rain 
ohn blin’t me. ” 

“That’s gien ye be able to baud it up. I doobt the win’ 
’ll be ower sair upo’t. I’m thinkin,’ though, it’ll be mair to 
baud yer beuk dry ! ” 

Janet smiled and made no denial. 

“ Noo, Gibbie, ” she said, “ye gang an’ lowse Crummie. 
But ye’ll hae to lead her. She winna be to caw in sic a win’ ’s 
this, an’ no plain ro’d afore her. ” 

“ Whaurdiv ye think o’ gauin’.?” asked Robert, who satis- 
fied as usual wdth whatever might be in his wife’s mind, had 
not till this moment thought of asking her where she meant to 
take refuge. 

“ Ow, we’ll jist mak for the Mains, gien ye be agreeable, 
Robert, ” she answered. “It’s there we belang till, an’ in 
wather like this naebody wad refeese bield till a beggar, no to 
say Mistress Jean till her ain fowk. ” 

With that she led the way to the door and opened it. 

“His voice was like the soon’ o’ mony watters, ” she said 
to herself softly, as the liquid thunder of the torrent came in 
louder. 

Gibbie shot round the corner to the byre, whence through 
all the roar, every now and then they had heard the cavernous 
mooing of Crummie, piteous and low. He found a stream a 
foot deep running between her fore and hind legs, and did not 
wonder that she wanted to be On the move. Speedily he loosed 
her, and fastening the chain-tether to her halter, led her out. 
She was terrified at sight of the falling water, and they had some 


2o5 


SIR GIBBIE. 


trouble in getting her through behind it, but presently after, 
she was making the descent as carefully and successfully as any 
of them. 

It was a heavy undertaking for the two old folk to walk all 
the way to the Mains, and in such a state of the elements ; but 
where there is no choice, we do well to make no difficulty. 
Janet was half troubled that her mountain, and her foundation 
on the rock, should have failed her ; but consoled herself that 
they were but shadows of heavenly things and figures of the 
true ; and that a mountain or a rock was in itself no more to be 
trusted than a horse or a prince or the legs of a man. Robert 
plodded on in contented silence, and Gibbie was in great 
glee, singing, after his fashion, all the way, though now and 
then half-chocked by the fierceness of the wind round some 
corner of rock, filled with rain-drops that stung like hail- 
stones. 

By and by Janet stopped and began looking about her. 
This naturally seemed to her husband rather odd in the cir- 
cumstances. 

“What are ye efter, Janet.? ” he said, shouting through the 
wind from a few yards off, by no means sorry to stand for a 
moment, although any recovering of his breath seemed al- 
most hopeless in such a tempest. 

“I want to lay my umbrdl in safity, ” answered Janet, “ — 
gien I cud but perceive ashuitable spot. Ye was richt, Rob- 
ert, it’s mair w’alth nor I can get the guid o’. ” 

“ Hoots ! fling’t frae ye, than, lass,” he returned. “Is 
this a day to be thinking’ o’ warl’ ’s gear ? ” 

“What for no, Robert.?” she rejoined. “Ae day’s as 
guid’s anither for thinkin’ aboot onything the richt gait. ” 
“What ! ” retorted Robert, “ — whan we hae ta’en oor lives 
in oor han,’ an’ can no more houp we may cairry them throu’ 
safe ! ” 

‘ ‘ What’s that ’at ye co’ oor lives, Robert ? The Maister 
never made muckle o’ the savin’ sic like’s them. It seems to 
me they’re naething but a kin’ o’ warl’s ’s gear themsel’s. ” 
“An yet, ’’argued Robert, “ye’ll tak thoucht aboot an 
auld umbrell ? Whaur’s yer consistency, lass ? ” 

“ Gien I war tribled aboot my life, ” said Janet, “ I cud ill 
spare thoucht for an auld umbrell. But they baith trible me 
sae little, ’at I may jist as weel luik efter them baith. It’s 
auld an’ casten an’ bow-ribbit, it’s true, but it wad ill become 
me to drap it wi’oot a thoucht, whan him ’at could mak haill 
loaves, said, ‘Gether up the fragments ’at. naething be lost.’ 
— Na,” she continued, still looking about her, “I maun 


THE MAINS. 207 

jist dee my duty by the auld umbrell ; syne come 't ’at 
likes, I carena. ” 

So saying, she walked to the lee side of a rock, and laid 
the umbrella close under it, then a few large stones upon it to 
keep it down. 

I may add; that the umbrella, and with two new ribs, 
served Janet to the day of her death. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

THE MAINS. 

They reached at length the valley road. The water that 
ran in the bottom was the Lorrie. Three days ago it was a 
lively little stream, winding and changing within its grassy 
banks — here resting silent in a deep pool, there running and 
singing over its pebbles. Now it had filled and far overflowed 
its banks, and was a swift river. It had not yet, so far up the 
valley, encroached on the road ; but the torrents on the 
mountain had already in places much injured it, and with 
considerable difficulty they crossed some of the new-made 
gullies. When they approached the bridge, however, by 
which they must cross the Lorrie to reach the Mains, their 
worst trouble lay before them. For the enemy, with whose 
reinforcements they had all the time been descending, showed 
himself ever in greater strength the farther they advanced ; 
and here the road was flooded for a long way on both sides 
of the bridge. There was therefore a good deal of wading to 
be done ; but the road was an embankment, there was Itttle 
current, and in safety at last they ascended the rising ground 
on which the farm-building stood. When they reached the 
yard, they sent Gibbie to find shelter for Crummie, and them- 
selves went up to the house. 

“The Lord preserve ’s !” cried Jean Mavor, with uplifted 
hands, when she saw them enter the kitchen. 

“ He’ll dee that, mem,” returned Janet, with a smile. 

“But what can\iQ dee ? Gien ye be droont oot o’ the hills, 
what’s to come o’ hiz i’ the how ? I wad ken that !” said 
Jean. 

“The watter’s no up to yer door yet,” remarked Janet. 

“God forbid !” retorted Jean, as if the very mention of 
such a state of things was too dreadful to be polite. “ — But, 
eh, ye’re weet I” 


2o8 


SIR GIBBIE. 


^‘Wee/s no of the word,” said Robert, trying to laugh, but 
failing from sheer exhaustion, and the beginnings of an asth- 
matic attack. 

The farmer hearing their voices, came into the kitchen — a 
middle-sized and middle-aged, rather coarse looking man, 
with keen eyes, who took snuff amazingly. His manner was 
free, with a touch of satire. He was proud of driving a hard 
bargain, but was thoroughly hospitable. He had little respect 
for person or thing, but showed an occasional touch of tend- 
erness. 

“ Hoot, Rob !” he said roughly as he entered, “I thouchi; 
ye had niair sense ! What’s broucht ye here at sic a time ?” 

But as he spoke he held out his snuff-box to the old man. 

“ Fell needcessity, sir,” answered Robert, taking a good 
pinch. 

“Necessity!” restorted the farmer. “Was ye oot 
meal .?” 

‘ ‘ Oot o’ dry meal, I doobt, by this time, sir, ” replied 
Robert. 

“ Hoots ! I wuss we war a’ in like necessity — weel up upo’ 
the hill i’stead o’ doon here upo’ the haugh {river-meadow). 
It’s jist clean ridic’lous. Ye sud hae kenned better at your 
age, Rob. Ye sud hae thoucht twise, man.” 

“Deer, sir,” answered Robert, quietly fishing his pinch of 
snuff, “there was sma’ need, an’ less time to think, 
an’ Glashgar bursten, an’ the watter cornin’ ower the tap o’ the 
flit hoosie as gien ’twar a muckle owershot wheel, an’ no a 
place for fowk to bide him. Ye dinna think Janet an’ me 
wad be twa sic auld fules as pit on oor Sunday claes to sweem 
in, gien we toucht to see things we left them whan we gaed 
back ! Ye see, sir though the hoose be fun’t upo’ a rock, it’s 
maist biggit o’ fells, an’ the foundation’s a’ I luik even to see 
o’ ’t again. Whan the force o’ the watter grows less, it’ll come 
down upo’ the riggin’ wi’ the haill weicht o’ ’t. ” 

“Ay 1” said Janet, in a low voice, “the live stanes maun 
come to the live rock to bigg the hoose ’at’ll stan.” 

“What think ye, Maister Fergus, you ’at’s gauin’ to be a 
minister said Robert, referring to his wife’s words, as the 
young man looked in at the door of the kitchen. 

“ Lat him be,” interposed his father, blowing his nose with 
unnecessary violence ; ‘ ‘ setna him preachin’ afore’s time. 
Fess the whusky, Fergus, an’ gie auld Robert a dram. Haith 1 
gien the watter be rinnin’ ower the tap o’ yer hoose, man, it 
was time to fit. Fess twa or three glaisses, Fergus ; we hae 


THE MAINS. 


209 


a’ need o’ symething ’at’s no watter. It’s peyfeckly ridic- 
’lous !” 

Having taken a little of the whisky, the old people went to 
change their clothes for some Jean had provided, and in the 
mean time she made up her fire, and prepared some break- 
fast for them. 

“An’ whaur’s yer dummie ?” she asked, as they re-entered 
the kitchen. 

“He had puirCrummie to luik efter,” answered Janet ; “but 
he micht hae been in or this time.” 

“ He’ll be wi’ Donal i’ the byre, nae doobt,” said Jean : 

“ he’s aye some shy o’ cornin’ in wantin’ an inveet.” She 
went to the door, and called with a loud voice across the yard, 
though the wind and the clashing torrents. ‘ ‘ Donal, sen Dum- 
mie in till’s breakfast.” 

“ He’s awa’ till’s sheep,” cried Donal in reply. 

“Preserve’s ! — the cratur’ll be lost !” said Jean. 

“ Less likely nor ony man about the place,” bawled Donal 
half angry with his mistress for calling his friend dummie. 

‘ ‘ Gibbie kens better what he’s aboot nor ony twa’ at thinks 
him a fule ’cause he canna let oot sic stuff an’ nonesense as 
they canna baud in.” 

Jean went back to the kitchen only half reassured concern-, 
ing her brownie, and far from contented with his absence. 
But she was glad to find that neither Janet nor Robert ap- 
peared alarmed at the news. 

“ I wuss the cratur had had some brakfast,” she said. 

“ He has a piece in ’s pooch,” answered Janet. “ He’s no 
oonprovidit wi’ what can he made mair o’.” 

“ I dinna richtly un’erstan ye there,” said Jean. 

“Ye canna hae failt to remark, mem,” answered Janet, “at 
whan the Maister set himsel’ to feed the hungerin’ thoosan’s 
he teuk intil’s han’ what there was, an’ vroucht upo’ that to 
mak mair c’ ’t. I hae wussad sometimes’ at the laddie wi’ the 
five barley loaves an’ the twa sma’ fishes, hadna been there 
that day. I wad fain ken hoo the Maister wad hae managed 
wanti. onything to begin upo.’ As it was, he aye hang what 
he did upo’ something his Father had dune afore him.” 

“ Hoots !” returned Jean, who looked upon Janet a lover of 
conundrums, “ye’re aye warstlin’ wi’ run k-nots an’ teuch 
moo’fu’s.” 

“ Ow na, no aye,” answered Janet; “ — only whiles, whan 
the speerit o’ speirin’ gets the upper han’ o’ me for a sizon.” 

“I doobt that same speerit ’ll lead ye far frae the still. 


210 


SIR GIBBIE. 


waiters some day, Janet,” said Jean stirring the porridge 
vehemently. 

“ Ow, I think not,” answered Janet very calmly. ‘‘ Whan 
the Maister says — whafs that to thee ? — I tak cdre he hasna to 
say’t twise, but jist get up an’ follow him.” 

This was beyond Jean, but she held her peace, for though 
she feared for Janet’s orthodoxy, and had a strong opinion of 
the superiority of her own common sense — in which, as in the 
case of all who pride themselves iti the same, there was a 
good deal more of the common than of the sense — she had the 
deepest conviction of Janet’s goodness, and regarded her as a 
sort of heaven-favored idiot, whose utterances were some- 
what priviledged. Janet for her part, looked upon Jean as 
‘^aw honest wuman, wha’ll get a heap o’ licht some day.” 

When they had eaten their breakfast, Robert took his pipe 
to the barn, saying there was not much danger of fire that day ; 
Janet washed up the dishes, and sat down to her Book ; and 
Jean went out and in, attending to many things. 

Mean time the rain fell, the wind blew, and the water rose. 
Little could be done beyond feeding the animals, threshing a 
little corn in the barn, and twisting straw ropes for the thatch 
of the ricks of the coming harvest — if indeed there was a har- 
vest on the road, for, as the day went on, it seemed almost to 
grow doubtful whether any ropes would be wanted ; while 
already not a few of last year’s ricks, from farther up the 
country, were floating past the Mains, down the Daur to the 
sea. The sight was a dreadful one — had an air of the day of 
judgement about it to the farmer’s eyes. From the Mains, to 
right and left beyond the rising ground on which the farm 
building’s stood, everywhere as far as the bases of the hills, 
instead of fields was water, yellow brown, here in still expanse 
or slow progress, there sweeping along in fierce current. The 
quieter parts of it was dotted with trees, divided by hedges, 
shaded with ears of corn ; upon the swifter parts floated ob- 
jeets of all kinds. 

Mr Duff went wandering restlessly from one spot to another 
finding nothing to do. In the gloaming, which fell the sooner 
that a rain-blanket miles thick wrapt the earth up from the 
sun he came across from the barn, and entering the kitchen, 
dropped, weary with hopelessness, on a chair. 

“ I can well un’estan’,” he said, “ what forlhe Lord sud set 
doon Bony an’ set up Lony, but what for he sud gar corn 
grow, an’ syne sen’ a spate to sweem awa’ wi’ ’t, that’s mair 
nor mortal man can see the sense o’. — Haud yer tongue, 
Janet. I’m no sayin’ there’s onything wrang ; I’m sayin’ 


THE MAINS. 


211 


naething but the sair trowth, ’at I canna see the what-for o' 

’t. I canna see the guid o’ ’t till onybody. A’thing ’s on the 
ro’d to the German Ocean. The Ian’ ’s jist miltin’ awa’ intil 
the sea ! ” 

Janet sat silent, knitting hard at a stocking she had got 
hold of, that Jean had begun fer her brother. She knew 
argument concerning the uses of adversity was vain with a 
man who knew of no life but that which consisted in eating 
and drinking, sleeping and rising, working and getting on in 
the world ; as to such things existing only that they may sub- 
serve a real life, he was almost as ignorant, notwithstanding he 
W'as an elder of the church, as any heathen. 

From being nearly in the centre of its own land, the farm- 
steading of the Mains was at a considerable distance from any 
other ; but there w^as two or three cottages upon the land, 
and as the evening drew on, another aged pair, who lived in 
one only a few hundred yards from the house, made their ap- 
pearance, and were soon followed by the wife of the foreman 
with her children, who lived farther off. Quickly the night 
closed in, and Gibbie was not come. Robert was growing 
very uneasy ; Janet kept comforting and reassuring him. 

“ There’s ae thing,” said the old man: “ Oscar’s wi’ im.” 

Ay,” responded Janet, unwilling, in the hearing of others, 
to say a word that might seem to savor of rebuke to her hus^ 
band, yet pained that he should go to the dog for ccmfort — 
“Ay; he’s a well-made animal, Oscar ! There’s been a fowth 
o’ sheep-care pitten intil ’im. Ye see him ’at made dm, bein' 
a shepard himsel’, kens what’s wantit o’ the dog.’ — None but 
her husband understand what lay behind the words. 

“Oscar’s no wi”im,” said Donal. “The dog cam to me i' 
the byre, lang efter Gibbie was awa’, greitin’ like, an’ luikin’ 
for ’im.” 

Robert gave a great sigh, but said nothing. 

Janet did not sleep a wink that night : she had so many to 
pray for. Not Gibbie only, but every one of her family was 
in perils of waters, all being employed along the valley of the 
Daur. It was not, she said, confessing to her husband her 
sleeplessness, that she was afraid. She was only “keepin’ 
them company, an’ handin’ the yett open,” she said. The 
latter phrase was her picture-periphrase for praying. She 
never said she prayed\ she held the gate open. The wonder is 
but small that Donal should have turned out a poet. 

The dawn appeared — but the farm had vanished. Not 
even heads of crowing corn were anywhere more to be seen. 
The loss would be severe, and John Duff's heart sank -within 


212 


SIR GIBBIE. 


him. The sheep which had been in the mown clover-field 
that sloped to the burn, were now all in the corn-yard, and 
the water was there with them. If the rise did not soon cease 
every rick would be afloat. There was little current, how- 
ever, and not half the danger there would have been had the 
houses stood a few hundred yards in any direction from 
where they were. 

‘‘Takyer brakfast. John,” said his sister. 

“ Lat them tak 'at hungers,” he answered. 

“ Tak, or ye’ll no hae the wut to save,” said Jean. 

Thereupon he fell to, and ate, if not with appetite, then 
with a will that was wondrous. 

The flood still grew, and still the rain poured, and Gibbie 
did not come. Indeed no one any longer expected him, 
whatever might have become of him: except by boat the 
Alains was inaccessible now, they thought. Soon after break- 
fast, notwithstanding, a strange woman came to the door. 
Jean, who opened it to her knock, stood and stared speech- 
less. It was a greyhaired woman, with a more disreputable 
look than her weather-flouted condition would account for. 

“ Gran’ wither for the deuks ! ” she said. 

‘‘Whaur comej/e frae?” returned Jean, who did not relish 
the freedom of her address. 

“ Frae ower by,” she answered. 

An’ hoo wan ye here ?” 

Upo’ my twa legs.” 

Jean looked this way and that over the watery waste, and 
again stared at the woman in growing bewilderment. — They 
came afterwards to the conclusion that she had arrived, prob- 
ably half-drunk, the night before, and passed it in one of the 
out-houses. 

‘^Yer legs maun be langer nor they luik than, wuman,” 
said Jean, glancing at the lower part of the stranger’s person. 

The woman only laughed — a laugh without any laughter 
in it. 

“What’s yer wull, noo ’at ye are here?” continued Jean, 
with severity. “Ye camna to the Alains to tell them there 
what kin’ o’ wather it wis ! ” 

“I cam whaur I cud win,” answered the woman, “an’ 
for my wull, that’s naething to naebody noo — it’s no as it was 
ance — though, gien I cud get it, there micht be mair nor me 
the better for’t. An’ sae as ye wad gang the len’th o’ a glaiss 
o’ whusky ” 

“Ye’s get nae whusky here,” interrupted Jean, with deter- 
mination. 


THE MAINS. 


213 


The woman gave a sigh, and half turned away as if she 
would depart. But however she might have come, it was 
plainly impossible she should depart and live. 

“ Wuman,” said Jean, “ ken an’ I care naething aboot ye, 
an’ mair, I dinna like ye, nor the luik o’ ye ; and gien ’t war 
a fine simmer nicht ’at a body cud lie thereoot, or gang the 
farther, I wad steek the door i’ yer face ; but that I daurna 
dee the day again’ my neebour’s soo : sae ye can come in an’ 
sit doon’ an’, my min’ spoken, ye s’ get what’ll hand the life 
i’ ye, an’ a puckle strae i’ the barn. Only ye maun jist hae a 
quaiet sough, for the gudeman disna like tramps.” 

"‘Tramps here, tramps there!” exclaimed the woman, 
starting into high displeasure; “I wad had ye ken I’m an 
honest wuman, an’ no tramp 1 ” 

“Ye sudna luik sae like ane than,” said Jean coolly. 
“ But come yer wa’s in, an’ I’s say naething sae lang as ye 
behave.” 

The woman followed her, took the seat pointed out to her 
by the fire, and suddenly ate, without a word of thanks, the 
cakes and milk handed her, but seemed to grow better 
tempered as she ate, though her black eyes glowed at the food 
with something of disgust and more of contempt ; she would 
rather have had a gill of whisky than all the milk on the 
Mains. On the other side of the fire sat Janet, knitting away 
busily, with a look of ease and leisure. She said nothing, 
but now and then cast a kindly glance out of her grey eyes at 
the woman ; there was an air of the lost sheep about the 
stranger, which, in whomsoever she might see it, always drew 
her affection. “She maun be ane o’ them the Maister cam’ 
to ca’,” she said to herself But she was careful to suggest no 
approach, for she knew the sheep that has left the flock has 
grown wild, and is more suspicious and easily startled than 
one in the midst of its brethren. 

With the first of the light, some of the men on the farm 
had set out to look for Gibbie, well knowing it would be a 
hard matter to touch Glashgar. About nine they returned, 
having found it impossible. One of them, caught in a cur- 
rent and swept into a hole, had barely escaped with his life. 
But they were unanimous that the dummie was better off in 
any cave on Glashgar than he would be in the best bed-room 
at the Mains, if things went on as they threatened. 

Robert had kept on going to the barn, and back again to 
the kitchen, all the morning, consumed with anxiety about 
the son of his old age ; but the barn began to be flooded, and 
he had to limit his prayer-walk to the space between the door 


214 


SIR GIBBIE. 


of the house and the chair where Janet sat — knitting busily, 
and praying with countenance untroubled, amidst the rush of 
the seaward torrents, the mad howling and screeching of the 
wind, and the lowing of the imprisoned cattle. 

“O Lord,’' she said in her great trusting heart, “gien my 
bonny man be droonin’ i’ the watter, or deein’ o’ cauld on 
the hill-side, hand ’s han’. Binna far frae him, O Lord ; 
dinna lat him be fleyt. ” 

To Janet, what we call life and death were comparatively 
small matters, but she was very tender over suffering and fear. 
She did not pray half so much for Gibbie’s life as for the 
presence with him of him who is at the death-bed of every 
sparrow. She went on waiting, and refused to be troubled. 
True, she was not his bodily mother, but she loved him far 
better than the mother who, in such a dread for her child, 
would have been mad with terror. The difference was, that 
Janet loved up as well as down, loved down so widely, so 
intensely, because the Lord of life, who gives his own to us, 
was more to her than any child can be to any mother, and 
she knew he could not forsake her Gibbie, and that his pres- 
ence was more and better than life. She was unnatural, was 
she.? — inhuman.? — Yes, if there be no such heart and source 
of humanity as she believed in ; if there be, then such calm- 
ness and courage and content as hers are the mere human 
and natural condition to be hungered after by every aspiring 
soul. Not until such condition is mine shall I be able to 
regard life as a god-like gift, except in the hope that it is draw- 
ing nigh. Let him who understands, understand better ; let 
him not say the good is less than perfect, or excuse his supine- 
ness and spiritual sloth by saying to himself that a man can 
go too far in his search after the divine, can sell too much of 
what he has to buy the field of the treasure. Either there is 
no Christ of God, or my all is his. 

Robert seemed at length to have ceased his caged wander- 
ing. For a quarter of an hour he had been sitting with his 
face buried in his hands. Janet rose, went softly to him, and 
said in a whisper : 

“Is Gibbie waur aff, Robert, i’ this watter upo’ Glashgar, 
nor the dissiples i’ the boat upo’ yon loch o’ Galilee, an’ the 
Maister no come to them .? Robert, my ain man ! dinna gar 
the Maister say to you, ‘ 0 ye o' Utile faith ! Wharf or didye 
doobtp ’ Tak hert, man ; the Maister wadna hae him men be 
cooards.” 

“ Ye’er richt, Janet ; ye’re ayericht,” answered Robert, and 

rose, 


THE MAINS. 


215 


She followed him into the passage. 

“ Whaur are ye gauin’, Robert } ” she said. 

“ I wuss I cud tell ye,” he answered. “ I’m jist hungerin’ 
to be my lane. I wuss I had never left Glashgar. There’s 
aye room there. Or gien I cud win oot amo’ the rigs ! There’s 
nane o’ them left, but there’s the rucks — they’re no soomin’ 
yet ! I want to gang to the Lord, but I maunda weet Willie 
Mackay’s claes.” 

“ It’s a sair peety,” said Janet, “’at the men fowk disna 
learn to weyve stockin’s, or dee something or ither wi’ their 
ban’s. Mony’s the time my’ stockin’ ’s been maist as guid’s a 
cloaset to me, though I cudna jist gang intil’t. But what 
maitters ’t ! A prayer i’ the hert ’s sure to fin’ the ro’d oot. 
The hert’s the last place ’at can baud ane in. A prayin’ hert 
has nae reef {roof) till’t. 

She turned and left him. Comforted by her words, he 
followed her back into the kitchen, and sat down beside her. 

“Gibbie ’ill be here mayhap whan least ye luik for him,” 
said Janet. 

Neither of them caught the wild eager gleam that lighted 
the face of the strange woman at those last words of Janet. 
She looked up at her with the sharpest of glances, but the 
same instant compelled her countenance to resume its former 
expression of fierce indifference, and under that became watch- 
ful of everything said and done. 

Still the rain fell and the wind blew ; the torrents came 
tearing down from the hills, and shot madly into the rivers ; 
the rivers ran into the valleys, and deepened the lakes that 
filled them. On every side of the IMains, from the foot of 
Glashgar to Gormdhu, all was one yellow and red sea, with 
roaring currents and vortices numberless. It burrowed holes, 
it opened long-deserted channels and water-courses ; here it 
deposited inches of rich mould, there yards of sand and 
gravel ; here it was carrying away fertile ground, leaving be- 
hind only bare rock or shingle where the corn had been wav- 
ing ; there it was scooping out the bed of a new lake. Many 
a thick soft lawn, of loveliest grass, dotted with fragrant 
shrubs and rare trees, vanished, and nothing was there when 
the waters subsided but a stony waste, or a gravelly precipice. 
Woods and copses were undermined, and trees and soil to- 
gether swept into the vast : sometimes the very place was 
hardly there to say it knew its children no more. Houses 
were torn to pieces, and their contents, as from broken boxes, 
sent wandering on the brown waste, through the grey air, to 
the discolored ..ea. whose saltness for a long way out had 


2i6 


" SIR GIBBIR. 


vanished with its hue. Haymows were buried to the very 
top in sand ; others went sailing bodily down the mighty 
stream — some of them followed or surrounded, like big 
ducks, by a great brood of ricks for their ducklings. Huge 
trees went past as if shot down an Alpine slide, cottages, and 
bridges of stone, giving way before them. Wooden mills, 
thatched roofs, great mill-wheels, went dipping and swaying 
and hobbling down. From the upper windows of the Mains, 
looking tow'ards the chief current, they saw a drift of every- 
thing belonging to farms and dwelling-houses that would 
float. Chairs and tables, chests, carts, saddles, chests of 
drawers, tubs of linen, beds and blankets, work-benches, har- 
rows, girnels, planes, cheeses, churns, spinning-wheels, cra- 
dles, iron pots, wheel-barrows — all these and many other 
things hurried past as they gazed. Everybody was looking, 
and for a time all had been silent. 

‘ ‘ Lord save us ! ” cried Mr. Duff, with a great start, and 
ran for his telescope. 

A four-post bed came rocking down the river, now shoot- 
ing straight for a short distance, now slowly wheeling, now 
shivering, struck by some swifter thing, now whirling giddily 
round in some vortex. The soaked curtains were flacking 
and flying in the great wind — and — yes, the telescope re- 
vealed it ! — there was a figure in it ! — dead or alive the farmer 
could not tell, but it lay still ! — A cry burst from them all ; 
but on swept the strange boat, bound for the world beyond 
the flood, and none could stay its course. 

The water was now in the stable and cow-houses and barn. 
A few minutes more and it would be creeping into the 
kitchen. The Daur and its tributary the Lorrie were about 
to merge their last difference on the floor of Jean s parlor. 
Worst of all, a rapid current had set in across the farther end 
of the stable, which no one had as yet observed. 

Jean bustled about her work as usual, nor, although it was 
so much augmented, would accept help from any of her 
guests until it came to preparing dinner, when she allowed 
Janet and the foreman's wife to lend her a hand. ‘ ‘ The 
tramp-wife" she would not permit to touch plate or spoon, 
knife or potato. The woman rose in anger at her exclusion, 
and leaving the house waded to the barn. There she went 
up the ladder to the loft where she had slept, and threw her- 
self on her straw-bed. 

As there was no doing any work, Donal was out with two 
of the men, wading here and there where the water was not 
too deep, enjoying the wonder of the strange looks and curi- 


THE MAINS. 


217 


ous conjunctions of thing. None of them felt much of dis- 
may at the havoc around them : beyond their chests with 
their Sunday clothes and at most two clean shirts, neither of 
the men had anything to lose worth mentioning ; and for 
Donal, he would gladly have given even his books for such a 
ploy. 

“There’s ae thing, mither,”he said, entering the kitchen, 
covered with mud, a rabbit in one hand and a large salmon 
in the other, “we’re no like to sterve, wi’ sawmon i’ the 
hedges, an’ mappies i’ the trees ! ” 

His master questioned him with no little incredulity. It 
was easy to believe in salmon anywhere, but rabbits in trees ! 

“I catched it i’ the brainches o’ a lairick {larch)” Donal 
answered, “easyeneuch, for it cudna rin far, an’ was mair 
fleyt at the watter nor at me ; but for the sawmon, haith I 
was ow'er an’ ow'er wi’ hit i’ the watter, efter I gruppit it, er’ I 
cud ca’ ’t my ain. ” 

Before the flood subsided, not a few rabbits were caught in 
trees, mostly spruce-firs and larches. For salmon, they w^ere 
taken everywhere — among grass, corn, and potatoes, in 
bushes, and hedges, and cottages. One was caught on a 
lawn wdth an umbrella ; one was reported to have been found 
in a press-bed ; another, coiled round in a pot hanging from 
the crook — ready to be boiled, only that he was alive and 
undressed. 

Donal w'as still being cross-questioned by his master w'hen 
the strange woman re-entered. Lying upon her straw, she 
had seen, through the fan-light over the stable-door, the swift- 
ness of the current there passing, and understood the danger. 

“I doobt, ” she said, addressing no one in particular, 
“the gal’e o’ the stable winna stan’ abune anithen half- 
hoor. ” 

“It maun fa’ than, ” said the farmer, taking a pinch of snuff 
in hopeless serenity, and turning aw^ay. 

“ Hoots ! ” said the woman, “ dinna speyk that gait, sir. 
It’s no wice-like. Tak a dram, an’ tak hert, an’ dinna fling 
the calf efter the coo. Whaur’s yer boatle, sir ? ” 

John paid no heed to her suggestion, but Jean took it up. 

“The boatle’s whaur ye s’ no lay han’ upo’ ’t” she said. 

“Weel, gien ye hae nae mercy upon’ yer whusky, ye sud 
hae some upo’ yer horse-beasts, ony gait, ” said the woman 
indignantly. 

“ What mean ye by that ? returned Jean, with hard voice, 
and eye of blame. 


2i8 


SIR GIEBIE. 


“ Ye might at the leest gic the puir things a chance, ” the 
woman rejoined. 

“Hoowad ye dee that.?” said Jean. “ Gien ye lowsed 
them they wad but tak to the watter wi' fear, an’ droon the 
seener. ” 

“ Na, na, Jeen, ” interposed the farmer, ‘‘they wad tak 
care o’ themsel’s to the last, an’ aye hand to the dryest, jist as 
ye wad yersel’. ” 

“ Allooin’, ” said the stranger, replying to Jean, yet speak- 
ing rather as if to herself, while she thought about something 
else, “I wad raither droon soomin’ nor tied by the heid. — 
But what’s the guid o’ doctrine whaur there’s onything to be 
dune? — Ye hae whaur to put them. — What kin’ ’s the fleers 
{^floors ) up the stair, sir ? ” she asked abruptly, turning full on 
her host, with a flash in her deep-set black eyes. 

“ Ow, guid dale fleers — what ither? ” answered the farmer. 
“ — It’s the wa’s, wuman, no the fleers we hae to be concernt 
aboot i’ this wather. ” 

“Gien the j’ists be strang, an’ weel set intil the wa’s what 
for sadna ye tak the horse up the stair intil yer bedrooms ? 
It’ll be a’ to the guid o’ the wa’s, for the weicht o’ the beasts 
’ll be upo’ them to baud them doon, an’ the haill hoose again’ 
the watter. An’ gein I was you, I wad pit the best o’ the kye 
an’ the nowt intil the parlor an’ the kitchen here. I’m think- 
in’ we’ll lowse them a’ else ; for the byre wa’s ’ll gang afore the 
hoose. ” 

Mr. Duff broke into a strange laughter. 

“ Wad ye no tak up the carpets first, wuman? ” he said. 

“I wad,” she answered; “that gangs ohn s^Qut—gien 
i}ie7'e was time ; but I tell ye there’s nane ; an’ ye’ll buy two or 
three carpets for the price o’ ae horse. ” 

“ Haith ! ” the wuman’s i’ the richt, ” he cried, suddenly 
waking up to the sense of the proposal, and shot from the 
house. 

All the women, Jean making no exception to any help 
now, rushed to carry the beds and blankets to the garret. 

Just as Mr. Duff entered the stable from the nearer end, 
the opposite gable fell out with a great splash, letting in the 
wide level vision of turbidly raging waters, fading into the ob- 
scurity of the wind-driven rain. While he stared aghast, a 
great tree struck the wall like a battering-ram, so that the 
stable shook. The horses, which had been for some time 
moving uneasily, were now quite scared. There was not a 
moment to be lost. Duff shouted for his men ; oiie or two 
came running ; and in less than a minute m^re those in the 


GLASHRUACH. 


219 


house heard the iron-shod feet splashing and stamping 
through the water, as, one after another, the horses were 
brought across the yard to the door of the house. Mr. Duff 
led by the halter his favorite. Snowball, who was a good deal 
excited, plunging and rearing so that it was all he could do 
to hold him. He had ordered the men to take the others 
first, thinking he would follow more quietly. But the mo- 
ment Snowball heard the first thundering of hoofs on the 
stair, he went out of his senses with terror, broke from his 
master, and went plunging back to the stable. Duff darted 
after him, but was only in time to see him rush from the 
further end into the swift current, where he was at once out 
of his depth, and was instantly caught and hurried, rolling 
over and over, from his master s sight. He ran back into the 
house, and up to the highest window. From that he caught 
sight of him a long way down, swimming. Once or twice he 
saw him turned heels over head — only to get his neck up 
again presently, and swim as well as before. But alas ! it 
was in the direction of the Daur, which would soon, his mas- 
ter did not doubt, sweep his carcass into the North Sea. 
With troubled heart he strained his sight after him as long as 
he could distinguish his lessening head, but it got amongst 
some wreck, and unable to tell any more whether he saw it 
or not, he returned to his men with his eyes full of tears.. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

GLASHRUACH. 

As soon as Gibbie had found a stall for Crummie, and 
thrown a great dinner before her, he turned and sped back 
the way he had come : there was no time to lose if he would 
have the bridge to cross the Lorrie by ; and his was indeed 
the last foot that ever touched it. Guiding himself by well- 
known points yet salient, for he knew the country perhaps 
better than any man born and bred in it, he made straight 
for Glashgar, itself hid in the rain. Now wading, now swim- 
ming, now walking along the top of a wall, now caught and 
baffled in a hedge, Gibbie held stoutly on. Again and again 
he got into a current, and was swept from his direction, but 
he soon made his lee way good, and at length, clear of the 
level water, and with only the torrents to mind, seated himself 
on a stone under a rock a little way up the mountain. There 


220 ’ 


SIR GIBBIE. 


he drew from his pocket the putty-like mass to which the 
water had reduced the cakes with which it was filled, and ate 
it gladly, eyeing from his shelter the slanting lines of the rain, 
and the rushing sea from which he had just emerged. So 
lost was the land beneath the water, that he had to think to 
be certain under which of the roofs, looking like so many 
foundered Noah’s arks, he had left his father and mother. 
Ah ! yonder were cattle ! — a score of heads, listlessly drifting 
down, all the swim out of them, their long horns, like bits of 
dry branches, knocking together! There was a pig, and there 
another! And, alas! yonder floated half a dozen helpless 
sponges of sheep ! 

At sight of these last he started to his feet, and set off up 
the hill. It was not so hard a struggle as to cross the water, 
but he had still to get to the other side of several torrents far 
more dangerous than any current he had been in. Again 
and again he had to ascend a long distance before he found 
a possible place to cross at ; but he reached the fold at last. 

It was in a little valley opening on that where lay the tarn. 
Swollen to a lake, the waters of it were now at the very gate 
of the pen. For a moment he regretted he had not brought 
Oscar, but the next he saw that not much could with any 
help have been done for the sheep, beyond what they could 
if at liberty, do for themselves. Left where they M ere, they 
would probably be drowned ; if not they M'ould be starved, but 
if he let them go, they m'ouIcI keep out of the water, and find 
for themselves what food and shelter M’ere to be had. He 
opened the gate, drove them out, and a little M ay up the hill, 
and left them. 

By this time it M^as about two o’clock, and Gibbie M’as very 
hungry. He had had enough of the water for one day, how- 
ever, and was not inclined to return to the Mains. Where 
could he get something to eat.? If the cottage Mere still 
standing — and it might be — he M^ould find plenty there. He 
turned tOM^ards it. Great M as his pleasure when, after another 
long struggle, he perceived that not only was the cottage 
there, but the torrent gone : either the flow from the mountain 
had ceased, or the course of the M^ater had been diverted. 
When he reached the Glashburn, M-hich lay between him and 
the cottage, he saw that the torrent had found its way into it, 
probably along M'ith others of the same brood, for it was 
frightfully swollen, and M^ent shooting doMm to Glashruach 
like one long cataract. He had to go a great way up before 
he could cross it. 

WTen at length he reached home, he discovered that the 


GLASIIRUACH. 


221 


overshooting stream must have turned aside very soon after 
they left, for the place was not much worse than then. He 
swept out the water that lay on the floor, took the dryest peats 
he could find, succeeded with the tinder-box and sulphur- 
match at the first attempt, lighted a large fire, and made him- 
self some water-brose — which is not only the most easily 
cooked of dishes, but is as good as any for a youth of capacity 
for strong food. 

His hunger appeased, he sat resting in Robert’s chair, 
gradually drying ; and falling asleep, slept for an hour or so. 
When he woke, he took his New Testament from the crap o' 
ihe wa\ and began to read. 

Of late he had made a few attempts upon one and another 
of the Epistles, but, not understanding what he read, had not 
found profit, and was on the point of turning finally from 
them for the present, when his eye falling on some of the 
words of St. John, his attention was at once caught, and he 
had soon satisfied himself, to his w’onder and gladness, that 
his First Epistle was no sealed book any more than his 
Gospel. To the third chapter of that Epistle he now turned, 
and read until he came to these words : “Hereby perceive we 
the love of God, because he laid down his life for us, and we 
ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” 

“What learned him that.?” said Gibbie to himself; Janet 
had taught him to search the teaching of the apostles for 
what the Master had taught them. He thought and thought, 
and at last remembered, “ 7Eis is my commandment, that ye 
love one another as I have loved you.” 

“And here am I,” said Gibbie to himself, “sittin’ here in 
idleseat, wi’ my fire, an’ my brose, an’ my Bible, and a’ the 
warl’ aneath Glashgar lying’ in a speat {flood ) ! I canna lay 
doon my life to save their sowls ; I maum save for them what 
I can — it may be but a hen or a calf. I maum dee the warks 
o’ him ’at sent me — he’s aye savin’ at men.” 

The Bible was back in its place, and Gibbie out of the 
door the same moment. He had not an idea what he was 
going to do. All he yet understood was, that he must go 
down the hill, to be where things might have to been done — 
and that before the darkness fell. He must go where there 
were people. As he went his heart was full of joy, as if he 
had already achieved some deliverance. Down the hill he 
went singing and dancing. If mere battle with storm was a 
delight to the boy, what would not a mortal tussle with the 
elements for the love of men be .? The thought itself was a 
heavenly felicity, and made him “happy as a lover.” 


222 


SIR GIBBIE. 


His first definitely directive thought was, that his nearest 
neighbors were likely enough to be in trouble — “the fowkat 
the muckle hoose.” He would go thither straight. 

Glashruach, as I have already said, stood on one of the 
roots of Glashgar, where the mountain settles down into the 
valley of the Daur. Immediately outside its principal gate 
ran the Glashburn ; on the other side of the house, within 
the grounds, ran a smaller hill-stream, already mentioned as 
passing close under Ginevra’s window. Both these fell into 
the Lorrie. Between them the mountain sloped gently up 
for some little distance clothed with forest. On the side of 
the smaller burn, however, the side opposite the house, the 
ground rose abruptly. There also grew firs but the soil was shal- 
low, with rock immediately below, and they had not come to 
much. Straight from the mountain, between the two streams, 
Gibbie approached the house, through larches and pines, rav- 
ing and roaring in the wind. As he drew nearer, and saw 
how high the house stood above the valley and its waters, he 
began to think he had been foolish in coming there to find 
work ; but when he reached a certain point whence the ap- 
proach from the gate was visible, he started, stopped, and 
stared. He rubbed his eyes. No ; he was not asleep and 
dreaming by the cottage fire ; the wind was about him, and 
the firs were howling and hissing ; there was the cloudy 
mountain, with the Glashburn, fifty times its usual size, dart- 
ing like brown lightning from it ; but where was the iron 
gate with its two stone pillars, crested with wolf s-heads ? where 
was the bridge ? where was the wall, and the gravelled road 
to the house ? Had he mistaken his bearings ? was he look- 
ing in a wrong direction ? Below him w'as a wide, swift, 
fiercely rushing river, where w^ater w'as none before ! No ; he 
made no mistake : there was the rest of the road, the end of 
it next the house ! That was a great piece of it that fell 
frothing into the river and vanished ! Bridge and gate and 
wall were gone utterly. The burn had swallowed them, and 
now, foaming wdth madness, was roaring along, a preat way 
within the grounds, and rapidly drawing nearer to the house, 
tearing to pieces and devouring all that defended it. There ! 
what a mouthful of the shrubbery it gobbled up ! Slowdy 
graciously, the tall trees bowled their heads and sank into the 
torrent, but the moment they touched it, shot away like 
arrows. Would the foundations of the house outstand it ? 
Were they as strong rs the w^alls of Babylon, yet if the water 
undermined them, down they must ! Did the laird know 
that the enemy was within his gates ? Not with all he had 


GLASHRUACH. 223 

that day seen and gone through, had Gibbie until now 
gathered any notion of the force of rushing water. 

Rousing himself from his bewildered amazement, he darted 
down the hill. If the other burn was behaving in like fash- 
ion, then indeed the fate of the house was sealed. But no ; 
huge and wild as that was also, it was not able to tear down 
its banks of rock. From that side the house did not seem in 
danger. 

]\Ir. Galbraith had gone again, leaving Ginevra to the care 
of Mistress Mac Farlane, with a strict order to both, and full 
authority to the latter to enforce it, that she should not set 
foot across the threshold on any pretext, or on the smallest 
expedition, without the housekeeper s attendance. He must 
take Joseph with him, he said, as he was going to the Duke’s, 
but she could send for Angus upon any emergency. 

The laird had of late been so little at home, that the estab- 
lishment had been much reduced ; Mistress Mac Farlane did 
most of the cooking herself ; had quarrelled with the house- 
maid and not yet got another ; and, Nicie dismissed, and the 
kitchen maid gone to visit her mother, was left alone in the 
house with her Mistress, if such we can callher who was really 
her prisoner. At this moment, however, she was not alone, 
for on the other side of the fire sat Angus, not thither attracted 
by any friendship for the housekeeper, but by the glass of 
whisky of which he sipped as he talked. Many a flood had 
Angus seen, and some that had done frightful damage, but 
never one that had caused him anxiety ; and although this 
was worse than any of the rest, he had not yet a notion how 
bad it really was. For, as there was nothing to be done out 
of doors, and he was not fond of being idle, he had been busy 
all the morning in the woodhouse, sawing and splitting for 
the winter-store, and working the better that he knew what 
honorarium awaited his appearance in the kitchen. In the 
woodhouse he only heard the wind and the rain and the roar, ; 
he saw nothing of the flood ; when he entered the kitchen, it 
was by the back door, and he sat there without the smallest 
suspicion of what was going on in front. 

Ginevra had had no companions since Nicie left her, and 
her days had been very dreary, but this day had been the 
dreariest in her life. Mistress MacFarlane made herself so 
disagreeable that she kept away from her as much as she 
could, spending most of her time in her own room, with her 
needlework, and some books of poetry she had found in the 
library. But the poetry had turned out very dull — not at all 
like what Donal read, and throwing one of them aside for the 


224 


SIR GIBBIE. 


tenth time that day, she wandered listlessly to the window, 
and stood there gazing out on the wild confusion — the burn 
roaring below, the trees opposite ready to be torn to pieces 
by the wind, and the valley beneath covered with stormy 
water. The tumult was so loud, that she did not hear a 
gentle knock at her door : as she turned away, weary of 
everything, she saw it softly open — and there to her astonish- 
ment stood Gibbie — come, she imagined, to seek shelter, be- 
cause their cottage had been blown down. Calculating the 
position of her room from what he knew of its windows, he 
had, with the experienced judgment of a mountaineer, gone 
to it almost direct. 

“You mustn’t come here, Gibbie,” she said, advancing. 
“ Go down to the kitchen, to Mistress Mac Farlane. She will 
see to what you want. ” 

Gibbie made eager signs to her to go with him. She con- 
cluded that he wanted her to accompany him to the kitchen 
and speak for him ; but knowing that would only enrage her 
keeper with them both, she shook her head, and went back to 
the window. The thought, as she approached it, there seemed 
a lull in the storm, but the moment she looked out, she gave 
a cry of astonishment, and stood staring. Gibbie had fol- 
lowed her as softly as swiftly, and looking out also, saw good 
cause indeed for her astonishment : the channel of the raging 
burn was all but dry ! Instantly he understood what it meant. 
In his impotence to persuade, he caught the girl in his arms, 
and rushed with her from the room. She had faith enough 
in him by this time not to struggle or scream. He shot down 
the stair with her, and out of the front door. Her weight 
was nothing to his excited strength. The moment they issued, 
and she saw the Glashburn raving along through the lawn, 
with little more than the breadth of the drive between it and 
the house, she saw the necessity of escape, though she did 
not perceive half the dire necessity for haste. Every few 
moments, a great gush would dash out twelve or fifteen yards 
over the gravel and sink again, carrying many feet of the 
bank with it, and widening by so much the raging channel. 

“ Put me down, Gibbie,” she said ; “I will run as fast as 
you like.” 

He obeyed at once. 

“ Oh ! ” she cried, “Mistress Mac Farlane I — I wonder if 
she knows. Run and knock at the kitchen window. ” 

Gibbie darted off, gave three loud hurried taps on the 
window, came flying back, took Ginevra’s hand in his, drew 
her on till she was at her full speed, turned sharp to the left 


GLASHRUACH. 


225 


round the corner of the house, and shot down to the empty 
channel of the burn. As they crossed it, even to the inex- 
perienced eyes of the girl it was plain what had caused the 
phenomenon. A short distance up the stream, the whole 
facing of its lofty right bank had slipped down into its chan- 
nel. Not a tree, not a shrub, not a bed of moss was to be 
seen ; all was bare wet rock. A confused heap of mould, 
with branches and roots sticking out of it in all directions, 
lay at its foot, closing the view upward. The other side of 
the heap was beaten by the raging burn. They could hear, 
though they could not see it. Any moment the barrier 
might give way, and the water resume its course. They made 
haste, therefore, to climb the opposite bank. In places it 
was very steep, and the soil slipped so that often it seemed on 
its way with them to the bottom, while the wind threatened 
to uproot the trees to which they clung, and carry them off 
through the air. It was with a fierce scramble they gained 
the top. Then the sight was a grand one. The arrested 
water swirled and beat and foamed against the landslip, then 
rushed to the left, through the wood, over bushes and stones, 
a raging river, the wind tearing off the tops of its waves, to 
the Glashburn, into which it plunged, swelling yet higher its 
huge volume. Rapidly it cut for itself a new channel. Every 
moment a tree fell and shot with it like a rocket. Looking 
up its course, they saw it come down the hillside a white 
streak, and burst into boiling brown and roar at their feet. 
The wind nearly swept them from their place ; but they clung 
to the great stones, and saw the airy torrent, as if emulating 
that below it, fill itself with branches and leaves and lumps 
of foam. Then first Ginevra became fully aware of the 
danger in which the house was, and from which Gibbie had 
rescued her. Augmented in volume and rapidity by the 
junction of its neighbor, the Glashburn was now within a 
yard — so it seemed from that height at least — of the door. But 
they must not linger. The nearest accessible shelter was the 
cottage, and Gibbie knew it would need all Ginevra’s strength 
to reach it. Again he took her by the hand. 

“But where’s Mistress Mac Farlane?” she said. “Oh, 
Gibbie ! we mustn’t leave her. ” 

He replied by pointing down to the bed of the stream : 
there were she and Angus crossing. Ginevra was satisfied 
when she saw the gamekeeper with her, and they set out, as 
fast as they could go,. ascending the mountain, ■ Gibbje eager 
to have her in warmth and safety before it was dark. 

Both burns were now between them and the cottage, which 


226 


SIR GIBBIE. 


greatly added to their difficulties. The smaller burn came from 
the tarn, and round that they must go, else Ginevra would never 
get to the other side of it ; and then there was the Glashburn 
to cross. It was an undertaking hard for any girl, especially 
such for one unaccustomed to exertion ; and what made it 
far worse was that she had only house-shoes, which were 
continually coming off as she climbed. But the excitement 
of battling with the storm, the joy of adventure, and the 
pleasure of feeling her own strength, sustained her well for a 
long time ; and in such wind and rain, the absence of bonnet 
and cloak was an advantage, so long as exertion kept her 
warm. Gibbie did his best to tie her shoes on with strips of 
her pocket handkerchief ; but when at last they were of no 
more use, he pulled off his corduroy jacket, tore out the 
sleeves, and with strips from the back tied them about her 
feet and ankles. Her hair also was a trouble : it would keep 
blowing in her eyes, and in Gibbie’s too, and that sometimes 
with quite a sharp lash. But she never lost her courage, and 
Gibbie, though he could not hearten her with words, was 
so ready with smile and laugh, was so cheerful — even merry, 
so fearless, so free from doubt and anxiety, while doing 
everything he could think of to lessen her toil and pain, that 
she hardly felt in his silence any lack ; while often, to rest 
her body, and withdraw her mind from her sufferings, he 
made her stop and look back on the strange scene behind 
them. It w'as getting dark when they reached the only spot 
where he judged it possible to cross the Glashburn. He 
carried her over, and then it was all down-hill to the cottage. 
Once inside it, Ginevra threw herself into Robert’s chair, and 
laughed, and cried, and laughed again. Gibbie blew up the 
peats, made a good fire, and put on water to boil ; then 
opened Janet’s drawers, and having signified to his companion 
to take what she could find, went to the cow house, threw 
himself on a heap of wet straw, worn out, and had enough 
to do to keep himself from falling asleep. A little rested, 
he rose and re-entered the cottage, when a merry laugh from 
both of them went ringing out into the storm : the little lady 
was dressed in Janet’s workday garments, and making por- 
ridge. She looked very funny. Gibbie found plenty of milk 
in the dairy under the rock, and they ate their supper together 
in gladness. Then Gibbie prepared the bed in the little closet 
for his guest and she slept as if she had not slept for a week. 

Gibbie woke with the first of the. dawn. The rain still fell 
— descending in spoonfuls rather than drops ; the wind kept 
shaping itself into long hopeless howls, rising to shrill yells 


GLASHRUACH. 


227 


that went drifting away over the land ; and then nowling rose 
again. Nature seemed in despair. There must be more for 
Gibbie to do 1 He must go again to the foot of the mountain, 
and see if there was anybody to help. They might even be 
in trouble at the Mains, who could tell ! 

Ginevra woke, rose, made herself as tidy as she could, and 
left her closet. Gibbie was not in the cottage. She blew up 
the fire, and, finding the pot ready beside it, with clean water, 
set it on to boil. Gibbie did not come. The water boiled. 
She took it off, but being hungry, put it on again. Several 
times she took it off and put it on again. Gibbie never came. 
She made herself some porridge at last. Everything necessary 
was upon the table, and as she poured it into the wooden 
dish for the purpose, she took notice of a slate beside it, with 
something written upon it. The words were, “I will cum 
back as soon as I cann.” 

She was alone, then ! It was dreadful ; but she was too 
hungry to think about it. She ate her porridge, and then 
began to cry. It was very unkind of Gibbie to leave her, she 
said to herself. But then he was a sort of angel, and doubt- 
less had to go and help somebody else. There was a little 
pile of books on the table, which he must have left for her. 
She began examining them, and soon found something to 
interest her, so that an hour or two passed quickly. But 
Gibbie did not return, and the day went wearily. She cried 
now and then, made great efforts to be patient, succeeded 
pretty well for a while, and cried again. She read and grew 
tired a dozen times ; ate cakes and milk, cried afresh, and 
ate again. Still Gibbie did not come. Before the day was 
over, she had had a good lesson in praying. For here she 
was, one who had never yet acted on her own responsibility, 
alone on a bare mountain-side, in the heart of a storm which 
seemed as if it would never cease, and not a creature knew 
where she was but the dumb boy, and he had left her ! If 
he should never come back, what would become of her.? 
She could not find her way down the mountain ; and if she 
could, where was she to go, with all Daurside under water.? 
She would soon have eaten up all the food in the cottage, 
and the storm might go on for ever, who could tell .? Or who 
could tell whether, when it was over, and she got down to the 
valley below, she should not find it a lifeless desert, every- 
body drowned, and herself the only person left alive in the 
world? 

Then the noises were terrible. She seemed to inhabit 
noise. Through the general roar of ‘wind and water and 


228 


SIR GIBBIE. 


rain every now then came a sharper sound, like a report or 
crack, followed by a strange low thunder as it seemed. They 
were the noises of stones carried down by the streams, grind- 
ing against each other, and dashed stone against stone ; and 
of rocks falling and rolling, and bounding against their fast- 
rooted neighbors. When it began to grow dark, her misery 
seemed more than she could bear ; but then, happily, she 
grew sleepy, and slept the darkness away. 

With the new light came new promise and fresh hope. 
What should we poor humans do without our Gods nights 
and morning.? Our ills are all easier to help than we know 
— except the one ill of a central self, which God himself finds 
it hard to help. — It no longer rained so fiercely ; the wind had 
fallen ; and the streams did not run so furious a race down 
the sides of the mountain. She ran to the burn, got some 
water to wash herself — she could not spare the clear water, of 
which there was some still left in Janet’s pails — and put on 
her own clothes, which were now quite dry. Then she got 
herself some breakfast, and after that tried to say her prayers, 
but found it very difficult, for, do what she might to model 
her slippery thoughts, she could not help, as often as she 
turned herself towards him, seeing God like her father, the 
laird. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

THE WHELP. 

Gibbie sped down the hill through a worse rain than ever. 
The morning was close, and the vapors that filled it were like 
smoke burned to the hue of the flames whence it issued. 
Many a man that morning believed another great deluge be- 
gun, and all measures relating to things of this world lost 
labor. Going down his own side of the Glashburn, the nearest 
path to the valley, the gamekeeper’s cottage was the first 
dwelling on his way. It stood a little distance from the bank 
of the burn, opposite the bridge and gate, while such things 
were. 

It had been with great difficulty, for even Angus did not 
Know the mountain so well as Gibbie, that the gamekeeper 
reached it with the housekeeper the night before. It was 
within two gun-shots of the house of Glashruch, yet to get to 
it they had to walk miles up and down Glashgar. A moun- 


THE WHELP. 


229 


tain in storm is as hard to cross as a sea. Arrived, they did not 
therefore feel safe. The tendency of the Glashburn was in- 
deed away from the cottage, as the grounds of Glashrauch 
sadly witnessed ; but a torrent is double-edged, and who 
could tell? The yielding of one stone in its channel might 
send it to them. All night Angus watched, peering out ever 
again into the darkness, but seeing nothing save three lights 
that burned above the water — one of them, he thought, at the 
Mains. The other two went out in the darkness, but that only 
in the dawn. When the morning came, there was the Glash- 
burn meeting the Lorrie in his garden. But the cottage was 
well built, and fit to stand a good siege, while any moment 
the waters might have reached their height. By breakfast 
ttme, however, they were round it from behind. There is 
nothing like a flood for revealing the variations of surface, the 
dips and swells of a country. In a few minutes they were iso- 
lated, with the current of the Glashburn on one side, and that 
of the Lorrie in front. When he saw the water come in at 
front and back doors at once, Angus ordered his family up 
the stair : the cottage had a large attic, w'ith dormer windows, 
where they slept. He himself remained below for some time 
longer, in that end of the house where he kept his guns and 
fishing-tackle ; there he sat on on a table, preparing nets for 
the fish that would be left in the pools ; and not until he 
found himself afloat did he take his work to the attic. 

There the room was hot, and they had the window open. 
Mistress Mac Pholp stood at it, looking out on the awful 
prospect, with her youngest child, a sickly boy, in her arms. 
He had in his a little terrier-pup, greatly valued of the game- 
keeper. In a sudden outbreak of peevish wilfulness, he 
threw the creature out of the window. It fell on the slooping 
roof, and before it could recover itself, being too young to 
have the full command of four legs, rolled off. 

“’Eh ! the doggie’s f the watter !” cried Mistress Me Pholp 
in dismay. 

Angus threw down everything with an ugly oath, for he 
had given strict orders not one of the children should handle 
the whelp, jumped up, and got out on the roof From there 
he might have managed to reach it, so high now was the 
water, had the little thing remained where it fell, but already 
it had swam a yard or two from the house. Angus, who was 
a fair swimmer and an angry man, threw off his coat, and 
plunged after it, greatly to the delight of the little one, caught 
the pup with his teeth by the back of the neck, and turned to 
make for the house. Just then a shrub, swept from the hill, 


230 


SIR GIBBIE. 


caught him in the face, and so bewildered him, that, before 
he got rid of it, he had blundered into the edge of the current, 
which seized and bore him rapidly away. He dropped the 
pup, and struck out for home with all his strength. But he 
soon found the most he could do was to keep his head above 
water, and gave himself up for lost. His wife screamed in 
agony. Gibbie heard her as he came down the hill, and ran 
at full speed towards the cottage. 

About a hundred yards from the house, the current bore 
Angus straight into a large elder tree. He got into the mid- 
dle* of it, and there remained trembling, the weak branches 
breaking with every motion he made, while the stream worked 
at the roots, and the wind laid hold of him with fierce lever- 
age. In terror, seeming still to sink as he sat, he watched 
the trees dart by like battering-rams in the swiftest of the cur- 
rent : the least of them diverging would tear the elder tree 
with it. Brave enough in dealing with poachers, Angus was 
not the man to gaze with composure in tne face of a sure 
slow death, against which no assault could be made. Many 
a man is courageous because he has not conscience enough 
to make a coward of him, but Angus had not quite reached 
that condition, and from the branches of the elder tree 
showed a pale, terror-stricken visage. Amidst the many ob- 
jects on the face of the water, Gibbie, however, did not dis- 
tinguish it, and plunging in swam round to the front of the 
cottage to learn what was the matter. There the wife’s ges- 
ticulations directed his eyes to her drowning husband. 

But what was he to do.? He could swim to the tree well 
enough, and, he thought, back again, but how was that to be 
made of service to Angus ? He could not save him by main 
force — there was not enough of that between them. If he 
had a line, and there must be plenty of lines in the cottage, 
he would carry him the end of it to haul upon — that would 
do. If he could send it to him that would be better still, for 
then he could help at the other end, and would be in the 
right position, up stream, to help farther, if necessary, for 
down the current alone was the path of communication open. 
He caught hold of the eaves, and scrambled on to the roof. 
But in the folly and faithlessness of her despair, the woman 
would not let him enter. V/ith a curse caught from her hus- 
band, she struck him from the window, crying, 

“Ye s’ no come in here, an’ my man droonin’ yon’er ! 
Gang till ’im, ye cooard ! ” 

Never had poor Gibbie so much missed the use of speech. 


THE WHELP. 


231 


On the slope of the roof he could do little to force an en- 
trance, therefore threw himself off it to seek another, and be- 
took himself to the windows below. Through that of An- 
gus's room, he caught sight of a floating anker cask. It was 
the very thing ! — and there on the walls hung a quantity of 
nets and cordage ! But how to get in ? It was a sash-win- 
dow, and of course swollen with the wet, therefore not to be 
opened ; and there was not a square in it large enough to let 
him through. He swam to the other side, and crept softly 
on to the roof, and over the ridge. But a broken slate be- 
trayed him. The woman saw him, rushed to the fire-place, 
caught up the poker, and darted back to defend the window. 

“Ye Vno come in here, I tell ye," she screeched, “an' 
my man stickin' i' yon boortree buss ! " 

Gibbie advanced. She made a blow at him with the 
poker. He caught it, wrenched it from her grasp, and threw 
himself from the roof. The next moment they heard the 
poker at work, smashing the window. 

“He’ll be in an’ murder’s a’ !’’ cried the mother, and ran 
to the stair, while the children screamed and danced with 
terror. 

But the water was far too deep for her. She returned to 
the attic, barricaded the door, and went again to the window 
to watch her drowning husband. 

Gibbie was inside in a moment, and seizing the cask, pro- 
ceeded to attach to it a strong line. He broke a bit from a 
fishing-rod, secured the line round the middle of it with a 
notch,' put the stick through the bunghole in the bilge, and 
corked up the hole with a net-float. Happily he had a knife 
in his pocket. He then joined strong lines together until he 
thought he had length enough, secured the last end to a bar 
of the grate, and knocked out both sashes of the window 
with an axe. A passage thus cleared, he floated out first a 
chair, then a creepie, and one thing after another, to learn 
from what point to start the barrel. Seeing and recognizing 
them from above. Mistress Mac Pholp raised a terrible out- 
cry. In the very presence of her drowning husband, such a 
wanton dissipation of her property roused her to fiercest 
wrath, for she imagined Gibbie was emptying her house with 
leisurely revenge. Satisfied at length, he floated out his bar- 
rel, and followed with the line in his hand, to aid its direc- 
tion if necessary. It struck the tree. With a yell of joy An- 
gus laid hold of it, and hauling the line taut, and feeling it 
secure, committed himself at once to the water, holding by 


SIR GIBBIE. 


232 

the barrel, and swimming \vith his legs, while Gibbie, away 
to the side with a hold of the rope, was swimming his hard- 
est to draw him out of the current. But a weary man was 
Angus, when at length he reached the house. It was all he 
could do to get himself in at the window, and crawl up the 
the stair. At the top of it he fell benumbed on the floor. 

By the time that, repentant and grateful. Mistress Mac Pholp 
bethought herself of Gibbie, not a trace of him was to be seen ; 
and Angus, contemplating his present experience in connection 
with that of Robert Grant's cottage, came to the conclusion that 
he must be an emissary of Satan who on two such occasions had 
so unexpectedly rescued him. Perhaps the idea was not quite 
so illogical as it must seem ; for who should such a maif imagine 
any other sort of messenger taking an interest in his life ? He 
w'as confirmed in the notion when he found that a yard 
of the line remained attached to the gate, but the rest of it 
with the anker was gone — fit bark for the angel he imagined 
Gibbie, to ride the stormy waters withal. While they looked 
for him in the water and on the land, Gibbie was again in the 
room below, carrying out a fresh thought. With the help of 
the table, he emptied the cask, into which a good deal of 
w^ater had got. Then he took out the stick, corked the bung- 
hole tight, laced the cask up in a piece of net, attached the 
line to the net, and wound it about the cask by rolling the 
latter round and round, took the cask between his hands, and 
pushed from the window straight into the current of the Glash- 
burn. In a moment it had swept him to the Lorrie. By the 
greater rapidity of the former he got easily across the heavier 
current of the latter, and was presently in water comparatively 
still, swimming quietly towards the Mains, and enjoying 
his trip none-the-less that he had to keep a sharp look-out : 
if he should have to dive, to avoid any drifting object, he might 
lose his barrel. Quickly now, had he been so minded, he 
could have returned to the city — changing vessel for vessel, 
as one after another went to pieces. Many a house-roof offered 
itself for the voyage ; now and then a great water-wheel, hori- 
zontal and helpless, devoured of its element. Once he saw 
a cradle come gyrating along, and, urging all his might, in- 
tercepted it, but hardly knew whether he was more sorry or 
relieved to find it empty. When he was about half-way to the 
Mains, a whole fleet of ricks bore down upon him. He 
boarded one, and scrambled to the top of it, keeping fast hold 
of the end of his line, which unrolled from the barrel as he 
ascended. From its peak he surveyed the wild scene. All 
was running water. Not a human being was visible, and but 


THE WHELP. 


233 


a few house-roofs, of w'hich for a moment it was hard to say 
whether or no they were of those that were afloat. Here and 
there were the tops of trees, showing like low bushes. Noth- 
ing was uplifted except the mountains. He drew near the 
Mains. All the ricks in the yard were bobbing about, as if 
amusing themselves with a slow contradance ; but they were 
as yet kept in by the barn, and a huge of old hedge of haw- 
thorn. What was that cry from far away? Surely it was 
that of a horse in danger ! It brought a lusty equine response 
from the farm. Where could horses be with such a depth of 
water about the place ? Then he began a great lowing of 
cattle. But again came the cry of the horse from afar, and 
Gibbie this time recognizing the voice as snowball's, forgot 
the rest. He stood up on the very top of the rick, and sent 
his keen glance round on all sides. The cry came again and 
again, so that he was satisfied in what direction he must look. 
The rain had abated a little, but the air was so thick with 
■vapor that he could not tell whether it wa s really an object 
he seemed to see white against the brown water, far away to 
the left, or a fancy of his excited hope : it might be Snowball 
on the turn-pike road, which thereabout ran along the top of 
a high embankment. He tumbled from the rick, rolled the 
line about the barrel, and pushed vigorously for what might 
be the horse. 

It took him a weary hour — in so many currents was he 
caught, one after the other, all straining to carry him far below 
the object he wanted to reach : an object it plainly was before 
he had got half-way across, and by and by as plainly it was 
Snowball — testified to ears and eyes together. When at length 
he scrambled on the embankment beside him, the poor, 
shivering, perishing creature gave a low neigh of delight : he 
did not know Gibbie, but he was a human being. He was 
quite cowed and submissive, and Gibbie at once set about 
his rescue. He had reasoned as he came along that, if there 
■were beasts at the Mains, there must be room for Snowball, 
find thither he would endeavor to take him. He tied the end 
of the line to the remnant of the halter on his head, the other 
end being still fast to the barrel, and took to the water again. 
Encouraged by the power upon his head, the pressure, namely, 
of the halter, the horse followed, and they made for the Mains. 
It was a long journey, and Gibbie had not breath enough to 
sing to Snowball, but he made what noise he could, and they 
got slowly along. He found the difficulties far greater now 
that he had to look out for the horse as well as for himself. 
None but one much used to the water could have succeeded 


234 


SIR GIBBIE. 


in the attempt, or could indeed have stood out against its 
weakening influence and the strain of the continued exertion 
together so long. At length his barrel got water-logged, and 
he sent it adrift. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE BRANDER. 

Mistress Croale was not, after all, the last who arrived at 
the Mains. But that the next arrival was accounted for, 
scarcely rendered it less marvellous than hers. Just after the 
loss of Snowball, came floating into the farmyard, over the 
top of the gate, with such astonishment of all who beheld 
that each seemed to place more confidence in his neighbor’s 
eyes than in his own, a woman on a raft, with her four little 
children seated around her, holding the skirt of her gown 
above her head and out between her hands for a sail. She 
had made the raft herself, by tying some bars of a paling to- 
gether, and crossing them with what other bits of wood she 
could find — a '■^brander” she called it, which is Scotch for a 
gridiron, and thence for a grating. Nobody knew her. She 
had come down the Lorrie. The farmer was so struck with 
admiration of her invention, daring, and success, that he 
vowed he would keep the brander as long as it would stick 
together ; and as it could not be taken into the house, he 
secured it with a rope to one of the windows. 

When they had the horses safe on the first floor, they 
brought the cattle into the lower rooms ; but it became evi- 
dent that if they were to have a chance, they also must be 
got up to the same level. Thereupon followed a greater 
tumult than before — such a banging of heads and hind 
quarters, of horns and shoulders, against walls and partitions, 
such a rushing and thundering, that the house seemed in more 
danger from within than from without ; for the cattle were 
worse to manage than the horses, and one moment stubborn 
as a milestone, would the next moment start into a frantic 
rush. One poor wretch broke both her horns clean off against 
the wall, at a sharp turn of the passage ; and after two or 
three more accidents, partly caused by over-haste in the human 
mortals, Donal begged that the business should be left to him 
and his mother. His master consented, and it was wonder- 
ful what Janet contrived to effect by gentleness, coaxing, and 


THE BRANDER. 


235 


suggestion. When Hornie’s turn came, Donal began to tie 
ropes to her hind hoofs. Mr. Duff objected. 

‘'Ye dinna ken her sae weel as’ I dee, sir,”' answered Donal. 
“She wad caw her horns intil a man-o-war 'at angert her. 
A.n’ up yon’er ye cudna get a whack at her, for hurtin’ ane 'a 
didna deserve 't. I s' dee her no mischeef, I s' warran'. Ye 
jist lea’ her to me, sir.” 

His master yielded. Donal tied a piece of rope round 
each hind pastern — if cows have pasterns — and made a loop 
at the end. The moment she was at the top of the stair he 
and his mother dropped each a loop over a horn. 

“ Noo, she’ll naither stick t\ox {gore nor kick ) said 
Donal ; she could but bellow, and paw with her fore-feet. 

The strangers were mostly in Fergus's bed-room ; the horses 
were all in their owner's ; and the cattle were in the 
remaining rooms. Bursts of talk amongst the women 
were followed by fits of silence : who could tell how 
long the flood might last ! — or indeed whether the house 
might not be undermined before morning, or be struck by 
one of those big things of which so many floated by, and give 
way with one terrible crash ! Mr. Dulf, while preserving a 
tolerably calm exterior, was nearly at his wit's end. He 
would stand for half an hour together, with his hands in his 
pockets, looking motionless out of a window, murmuring 
now and then to himself, “This is clean ridic'lous ! ” But 
when anything had to be done he was active enough. Mis- 
tress Crbale sat in a corner, very quiet, and looking not a 
little cowed. There was altogether more water than she liked. 
Now and then she lifted her lurid black eyes to Janet, who 
stood at one of the windows, knitting away at her master's 
stocking, and casting many a calm glance at the brown waters 
rnd the strange drift that covered them ; but if Janet turned 
her head and made a remark to her, she never gave back other 
than curt if not rude reply. In the afternoon Jean brought 
the whisky bottle. At sight of it. Mistress Croale's eyes shot 
flame. Jean poured out a glassful, took a sip, and offered it 
to Janet. Janet declining it, Jean, invaded possibly by some 
pity of her miserable aspect, offered it to Mistress Croale. She 
took it with affected coolness, tossed it off at a gulp, and pre- 
sented the glass — not to the hand from which she had taken 
it, but to Jean's other hand, in which was the bottle. Jean 
cast a piercing look into her greedy eyes, and taking the glass 
from her, filled it, and presented it to the woman who had 
built and navigated the brander. Mistress Croale muttered 
something that sounded like a curse upon scrimp measure, 


SIR GIBBIE. 


236 

and drew herself farther back into the corner, where she had 
seated herself on Fergus’s portmanteau, 

doobt we hae an Ahchan i’ the camp — a Jonah intil 
the ship ! ” said Jean to Janet, as she turned, bottle and glass 
in her hands, to carry them from the room. 

“ Na, na ; naither sae guid nor sae ill,” replied Janet. 
*‘Fowk ’at’s been ill-guidit, no kennin’ whaur their help lies, 
whiles taks to the boatle. But this is but a day o’ punishment, 
no a day o’ judgment yet, an’ I’m thinkin’ the worst’s near 
han’ ower. Gien only Gibbie war here ! ” 

Jean left the room, shaking her head, and Janet stood alone 
at the window as before. A hand was laid on her arm. She 
looked up. The black eyes were close to hers, and the glow 
that was in them gave the lie to the tone of indifference with 
which Mistress Croale spoke. 

“Ye hae mair nor ance made mention o’ ane conneckit 
wi’ ye, by the name o’ Gibbie,” she said. 

“Ay,” answered Janet, sending for the serpent to aid the 
dove ; “ an’ what may be yer wull wi’ him ? ” 

“Ow, naething,” returned Mistress Croale “I kenned ano 
o’ the name lang syne ’at was lost sicht o’.” 

“There’s Gibbies here an’ Gibbies there,” remarked Janet, 
probing her. 

“Weel I wat!”she answered peevishly, for she had had 
whisky enough only to make her cross, and turned away, 
muttering however in an undertone, but not too low for Janet 
to hear, “but there’s nae mony wee Sir Gibbies, or the warl’ 
wadna be sae dooms like hell.” 

Janet was arrested in her turn : could the fierce, repellent, 
whisky-craving woman be the mother of her gracious Gibbie ? 
Could she be, and look so lost? But the loss of him had 
lost her perhaps. Anyhow God was his Father, whoever was 
the mother of him. 

“ Hoo cam ye to tyne yer bairn, wuman ?” she asked. 

But Mistress Croale was careful also, and had her reason. 

“ He ran frae the bluidy han’,” she said enigmatically. 

Janet recalled how Gibbie came to her, scored by the hand 
of cruelty. Were there always innocents in the world, who 
in their own persons, by the will of God, unknown to them- 
selves, carried on the work of Christ, filling up that which 
was left behind of the sufferings of their Master — women, 
children, infants, idiots — creatures of sufferance, with souls 
open to the world to receive wrong, that it might pass and 


THE BRANDER. 


237 


cease? little furnaces they, of consuming fire, to swallow 
up and destroy by uncomplaining endurance — the divine 
destruction ! 

“ Hoo cam he by the bonnie nickname?” she asked at 
length. 

“ Nickname?” retorted Mistress Croale fiercely; “ I think 
I hear ye ! His ain name an’ teetle by law an’ richt, as sure's 
ever there was a King Jeames ’at first pat his han’ to makin’ 
o’ baronets ! — as it’s aften I hae h’ard Sir George, the father 
o’ im, tell the same.” 

She ceased abruptly, annoyed with herself, as it seemed, for 
having said so much. 

' “Ye wadna be my lady yersel’, wad ye, mem?” suggested 
Janet in her gentlest voice. 

Mistress Croale made her no answer. Perhaps she thought 
of the days when she alone of women did the simplest of 
woman’s offices for Sir George. Anyhow, it was one thing to 
rush of herself to the verge of her secret, and quite another 
to be fooled over it. 

“It’s lang sin’ ye lost him !” asked Janet, a 'ter a bootless 
pause. 

‘ ‘ Ay, ” she answered, gruffly and discourteously, in a tone 
intended to quench interrogation. 

But Janet persisted. 

“Wad ye ken ’im again gien ye saw ’im?” 

“ Ken ’im ? I wad ken ’im gien he had grown a gran’father. 
Ken ’im, quo’ she ! Wha ever kenned ’im as I did, bairn ’at 
he was, an’ wadna ken ’im gien he war deid an’ an angel 
made o’ ’im ! — But weel I wat, it’s little differ that wad mak !” 

She rose in her excitement, and going to the other window, 
stood gazing vacantly out upon the rushing sea. To Janet 
it was plain she knew more about Gibbie than she was in- 
clined to tell, and it gave her a momentary sting of apprehen- 
sion. 

“What was aboot him ye wad ken sae weel ? ” she asked in 
a tone of indifference, as if speaking only through the meshes 
of her work. 

“ I’ll ken them ’at speirs afore I tell,” she replied sullenly. 
— But the next instant she screamed aloud, “Lord God 
Almichty I yon’s him ! yon’s himself !” and stretching out her 
arms, dashed a hand through a pane, letting in an eddying 
swirl of wind and water, while the blood streamed unheeded 
from her wrist. 

The same moment Jean entered the room. She heard both 
the cry and the sound of the breaking glass. 


238 


SIR GIBBIE. 


"‘Care what set the beggar-wife !” she exclaimed: Gang 

frae the window, ye randy, 

Mistress Croale took no heed. She stood now staring from 
the window still as a statue except for the panting motion of 
her sides. At the other window stood Janet, gazing also, 
with blessed face. For there, like a triton on a sea-horse, 
came Gibbie through the water on Snowball, swimming 
W'earily. 

He caught sight of Janet at the window, and straightway 
his countenance was radiant with smiles. Mistress Croale 
gave a shuddering sigh, drew back from her window, and be- 
took herself again to her dark corner. Jean went to Janet’s 
window and there beheld the triumphal approach of her 
brownie, saving from the waters the lost and lamented Snow- 
ball. She shouted to her brother. 

“John ! John ! here’s yer Snawba’ ; here’s yer Snawba’. 

John ran to her call, and, beside himself with joy when he 
saw nis favorite come swimming aiong, threw the window wide, 
and began to bawl the most unnecessary directions and encour- 
agements, as if the exploit had been brought thus far towards a 
happy issue solely through him, nnc irom all the windows 
Gibbie was welcomed with shouts and cheers and congratula- 
tions. 

“Lord preserve’s ! ” cried Mr. Duff, recognizing the rider 
at last, “it’s Rob Grant’s innocent ! Wha wad hae thought 
it ! ” 

“The Lord’s babes an’ sucklin’s are gey cawpable whiles,” 
remarked Janet to herself. She believed Gibbie had more 
faculty than any of her own, Donal included, nor did she share 
the prevalent prejudice of the city that heart and brains are 
mutually antagonistic ; for in her own case she had found that 
her brains were never v^orth much to her until her heart took 
up the education of them. But the intellect is, so much 
oftener than by love, seen and felt to be sharpened by necessity 
and greed, that it is not surprising such a 'prejudice should 
exist.- 

“Tak ’im roon’ to the door.” — “Whaur got ye ’im ?” 

“ Ye wad best get ’im in at the window upo’ the stair. ” 

“ Fie 11 be maist hungert.” — “Ye’ll be some weet, I’m think- 
in’ !” “Come awa’up the stair, an’ tell’s a’ aboot it.” A 
score of such conflicting shouts assailed Gibbie as lie ap- 
proached, and he replied to them all with the light of his 
countenance. 

When they arrived at the door, they found a difficulty await- 
ing them : the water was now so high that Snowball’s head rose 


THE BRAXDER. 


239 


above the lintel ; and, though all animals can swim, they do 
not all know how to dive. A tumult of suggestions immedi- 
ately broke out. But Donal had already throvm himself from 
a window with a rope, and swum to Gibbie’s assistance ; the 
two understood each other, and heeding nothing the rest 
were saying, held their own communications. In a minute 
the rope was fastened round Snowball’s body, and the end of 
it drawn between his fore-legs and through the ring of his 
head-stall, when Donal swam with it to his mother who stood 
on the stair, with the request that, as soon as she saw Snow- 
ball’s head under the water, she would pull with all her might, 
and draw him in at the door. Donal then swam back, and 
threw his arms round Snowball’s neck from below, while the 
same moment Gibbie cast his whole weight of it from above : 
the horse was ever head and ears in an instant, and through 
the door in another. With snorting nostrils and blazing eyes 
his head rose in the passage, and in terror he struck out for 
the stair. As he scrambled heavily up from the water, hisy 
master and Robert seized him, and with much petting and 
patting and gentling, though there was little enough difficulty 
in managing him now, conducted him into the bedroom to 
the rest of the horses. There he was welcomed by his com- 
panions, and immediately began devouring the hay upon his 
master’s bedstead. Gibbie came close behind him, was seized 
by Janet at the top of the stair, embraced like one come alive 
from the grave, and led, all dripping as he was, into the room 
where the women were. The farmer followed soon after with 
the whiskey, the universal medicine in those parts, of which he 
offered a glass to Gibbie, but the innocent turned from it with 
a curious look of mingled disgust and gratefulness : his 
father’s life had not been all a failure ; he had done what 
parents so rarely effect — handed the general results of his ex- 
perience to his son. The sight and smell of whiskey were to 
Gibbie a loathing flavored with horror. 

The farmer looked back from the door as he was leaving 
the room ; Gibbie was performing a wild circular dance of 
which Janet was the centre, throwing his limbs about like the 
toy the children call a jumping Jack, which ended suddenly 
in a motionless ecstasy upon one leg. Having regarded for 
a moment the rescuer of Snowball with astonishment, John 
Duff turned away with the reflection, how easy it was and 
natural for those who had nothing, and therefore could lose 
nothing, to make merry in others’ adversity. It did not once 
occur to him that it was the joy of having saved that caused 
Gibbie’s merriment thus to overflow. 


240 


SIR GIBBIE. 


“The cratur’s a born idiot ! ” he said afterwards to Jean; 
“ an’ it’ s jist a mervel what he’s cawpable o’ ! — But, ’deed, 
there’s little to cheese atween Janet an’ him ! They’re baith 
tarred wi’ the same stick. ” He paused a moment, then added, 
“They’ll dee weel eneuch i’ the ither warl, ’I doobtna, 
whaur naebody has to hand aff o’ themsel’s. ” 

That day, however, Gibbie had proved that a man may well 
afford both to have nothing, and to take no care of himself, 
seeing he had, since he rose in the morning, rescued a 
friend, a foe, and a beast of the earth. Verily, he might 
stand on one leg ! 

But when he told Janet that he had been home, and had 
found the cottage uninjured and out of danger, she grew very 
sober in the midst of her gladness. She could say nothing 
there among strangers, but the dread arose in her bosom that, 
if indeed she had not like Peter, denied her Master before 
men, she had like Peter, yielded homage to the might of the 
elements in his ruling presence ; and she justly saw the same 
faithfulness in the two failures. 

“ Eh !” she said to herself, “gien only I had been prayin' 
i’stead o’ rinnin’ awa’, I wad hae been there wean he turnt the 
watter aside ! I wad hae seen the miricle I O my IMaister I 
what think ye o’ me noo ?” 

For all the excitement INIistress Croale had shown at first 
view of Gibbie, she sat still in her dusky corner, made no 
movement towards him, nor did anything to attract his at- 
tention, only kept her eyes fixed upon him ; and Janet in her 
mingled joy and pain forgot her altogether. When at length 
it recurred to her that she was in the room, she cast a some- 
what anxious glance towards the place she had occupied all 
day. It was empty ; and Janet was perplexed to think how 
she had gone unseen. She had crept out after Mr. Duff, and 
probably Janet saw her, but as one of those who seeing see 
not, and immediately forget. 

Just as the farmer left the room, a great noise arose among 
the cattle in that adjoining ; he set down the bottle on a chair 
that happened to be in the passage, and ran to protect the 
partitions. Exultation would be a poor word wherewith to 
represent the madness of the delight that shot its fires into 
Mistress Croale’s eyes when she saw the bottle actually aban- 
doned within her reach. It was to her as the very key of the 
universe. She darted upon it, put it to her lips, and drank. 
Yet she took heed, thought while she drank, and did not go 
beyond what she could carry. Little time such an appropria- 
tion required. Noiselessly she set the bottle down, darted 


THE BRANDER. 


2A1 


into a closet containing a solitary calf, and there stood look- 
ing from the open window in right innocent fashion, curi- 
ously contemplating the raft attached to it, upon which she 
had seen the highland woman arrive with her children. 

At supper-time she was missing altogether. Nobody could 
with certainty say when he had last seen her. The house 
was searched from top to bottom, and the conclusion arrived 
at was, that she must have fallen from some window and 
been drowned — only, surely she would at least have uttered 
one cry ! Examining certain of the windows to know 
whether she might not have left some sign of such an exit, the 
farmer discovered that the brander was gone. 

“ Losh !" cried the orra man, with a face bewildered to 
shapelessness, like that of an old moon rising in a fog, 
^‘yon’ll be her I saw an boor ago, hyne doon the water ! " 

“Ye muckle gowk ! said his master, “ hoo cud she wia 
sae far ohn gane to the boddom ? ” 

“ Upo’ the bran’er, sir,” answered the orra man. “ tuik 
her for a muckle dog upon a door. The wife maun be a 
witch ! ” 

John Duff stared at the man with his mouth open, and foe 
half a minute all were dumb. The thing was incredible, yet 
hardly to be controverted. The woman was gone, the raft 
was gone, and something strange that might be the two to- 
gether had been observed about the time, as near as they 
could judge, when she ceased to be observed in the house. 
Had the farmer noted the change in the level of the whiskey 
in his bottle, he might have been surer of it — except indeed 
the doubt had then arisen whether they might not rather find 
her at the foot of the stair when the water subsided. 

Mr. Duff said the luck changed with the return of Snow- 
ball ; his sister said, with the departure of the beggar-wife. 
Before dark the rain had ceased, and it became evident that 
the water had not risen for the last half-hour. In two hours 
more it had sunk a quarter of an inch. 

Gibbie threw himself on the floor beside his mother’s chair, 
she covered him with her grey cloak, and he fell fast asleep. 
At dawn, he woke wdth a start. He had dreamed that Gin- 
evra was in trouble. He made Janet understand that he 
would return to guide them home as soon as the way was 
practicable, and set out at once. 

The water fell rapidly. Almost as soon as it was morning, 
the people at the Mains could begin doing a little towards 
restoration. But from that day forth, for about a year, in- 
stead of the waters of the Daur and the Lorrie, 


242 


SIR GIBBIE. 


the house was filled with the gradually subsiding flood of 
Jean’s lamentations over her house-gear — one thing after an- 
other, and twenty things together. There was scarcely an 
article she did not, over and over, proclaim utterly ruined, 
in a tone apparently indicating ground of serious complaint 
against some one who did not appear, though most of the 
things, to other eyes than hers, remained seemingly about as 
useful as before. In vain her brother sought to comfort her 
with the assurance that there were worse losses at Culloden ; 
she answered, that if he had not himself been specially fa- 
vored in the recovery of Snowball, he would have made a 
much worse complaint about him alone than she did about 
all her losses ; whereupon, being an honest man, and not 
certain that she spoke other than the truth, he held his peace. 
But he never made the smallest acknowledgment to Gibbie 
for the saving of the said Snowball: what could an idiot un- 
derstand about gratitude } and what use was money to a boy 
who did not set his life at a pin’s fee ? But he always spoke 
kindly to him thereafter which was more to Gibbie than any- 
thing he could have given him ; and when a man is content, 
his friends may hold their peace. 

The next day Jean had her dinner strangely provided. As 
her brother wrote to a friend in Glasgow, she “found at the 
back of the house, and all lying in a heap, a handsome dish 
of trout, a pike, a hare, a partridge, and a turkey, with a 
dish of potatoes, and a dish of turnips, all brought down by 
the burn, and deposited there for the good of the house, ex- 
cept the turkey, which, alas ! M^as one of her own favorite 
flock.’’ * 

In the afternoon, Gibbie re-appeared at the Mains, and 
Jlobert and Janet set out at once to go home with him. It 
was a long journey for them — he had to take them so many 
rounds. They rested at several houses, and saw much misery 
on their way. It was night before they arrived at the cottage 
They found it warm and clean and tidy : Ginevra had, like a 
true lady swept the house that gave her shelter ; that ladies 
often do ; and perhaps it is yet more their work in the world 
than they fully understand. For Ginevra, it was heavenly 

* See Sir Thomas Dick Lauder’s account of the Morayshire Floods in 
1829 (ist Ed., p. 181) — an enchanting book, especially to one whose ear- 
liest memories are interwoven with water floods. For details in such kind 
here given, I am indebted to it. Again and again, as I have been writing 
has it rendered me miserable — my tale showing so flat and poor beside 
Sir Thomas’s narrative. Known to me from childhood it wakes in me 
far more wonder and pleasure now, than it did even in the days when the 
marvel of things came more to the surface. 


MR. SCLATER. 


245 


bliss to her to hear their approaching footsteps ; and before 
she left them she had thoroughly learned that the. poorest 
place where the atmosphere is love, is more homely, and 
I y consequence more heavenly, than the most beautiful even, 
where law and order are elements supreme. 

“Eh, gien 1 had only faith an’ bidden ! ” said Janet to her- 
self as she entered ; and to the day of her death she never 
ceased to bemoan her too hasty desertion of “the wee hoosie 
upo’ the muckle rock.” 

As to the strange woman’s evident knowledge concerning 
Gibbie, she could do nothing but wait — fearing rather than 
hoping ; but she had got so far above time and chance, that 
nothing really troubled her, and she could wait quietly. 
At the same time it did not seem likely they would hear any- 
thing more of the woman herself ; no one believed she could 
have gone very far without being whelmed, or whuniled as 
they said, in the fierce waters. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 


MR. SCLATER. 

It may be remembered that upon Gibbie’s disappearance 
from the city, great interest was felt in his fate, and such ques- 
tions started about the boy himself as moved the Rev. Clement 
Sclater to gather all the information at which he could arrive 
concerning his family and history. That done; he proceeded 
to attempt interesting in his unknown fortunes those relatives 
of his mother whose existence and residences he had dis- 
covered. In this however, he had met with no success. At 
the house where she was born, there was now no one but a 
second cousin, to whom her brother, dying unmarried, had 
left the small estate of the Withrops, along with the family 
contempt for her husband, and for her because of him, 
inasmuch as, by marrying him, she had brought disgrace upon 
herself, and upon all her people. So said the cousin to Mr. 
Sclater, but seemed himself nowise humbled by the disgrace 
he recognized, indeed almost claimed. As to the orphan, he 
said, to speak honestly (as he did at least that once), the more 
entirely he disappeared, the better he would consider it — not 
that personally he was the least concerned in the matter ; only if 
according to the Scripture^ there was two generations yet upon, 
which-'had to be visited the sins of Sir George and . Lady Gal- 


244 


SIR GIBBIE. 


braith, the greater the obscurity in which they remained, the 
less w’ould be the scandal. 1 he brother who had taken to 
business, was the senior partner in a large ship-building firm 
at Greenock. This man William Fuller Withrop by name — 
Wilful Withrop the neighbors had nicknamed him — was a 
bachelor, and reputed rich. Mr. Sclater did not hear of him 
what roused very brilliant hopes. He was one who would de- 
mand more reason than reasonable for the most reasonable of 
actions that involved parting with money ; yet he had been, 
known to do a liberal thing for a public object. Waste was 
so wicked that any other moral risk was preferable. Of the 
three, he would waste mind and body rather than estate. 
Man was made neither to rejoice nor to mourn, but to possess. 
To leave no stone unturned, however, Mr. Sclater wrote 
to Mr. Withrop. The answer he received was that as 
the sister, concerning whose child he had applied to him, had 
never been anything but a trouble to the family ; as he had 
no associations with her memory save those of misery and 
disgrace ; as before he left home, her name had long ceased 
to be mentioned among them ; and as her own -father had 
deliberately and absolutely disowned her because of her obsti- 
nate disobedience and wilfulness, it could hardly be expected 
of him, and indeed would ill become him, to show any live- 
ly interest in her offspring. Still, although he could not 
honestly pretend to the smallest concern about him, 
he had, from pure curiosity made inquiry of corres- 
pondents with regard to the boy ; from which the resulting 
knowledge was, that he was little better than an idiot, whose 
character, education, and manners, had been picked up in 
the streets. Nothing, he was satisfied could be done for such 
a child, which would not make him more miserable, as w-ell 
as more wicked, than he was already. Therefore, &c. , &c. , &c. 

Thus failing, Mr. Sclater said to himself he had done ail 
that could be required of him — and had indeed taken trouble. 
Nor could anything be asserted, he said further to himself, 
as his duty in respect of this child, that was not equally his 
duty in respect of every little wanderer in the streets of his 
parish. That a child’s ancestors had been favored above 
others, and had so misused their advantages that their last 
representative was left in abject poverty, could hardly be a 
reason why that child, born, in more than probability, with 
the same evil propensities which had ruined them, should be 
made an elect ooject of favor. Who was he, Clement Scla- 
ter, to intrude upon the divine prerogative, and presume to 
act on the doctrine of election ! Was a child with a Str to 


MR. SCLATER. 


/ 24‘5 

his name, anythin'^ more in the eyes of God than a child 
without a name at all ? Would any title — even that of Earl 
or Duke, be recognized in the kingdom of heaven ? His rela- 
tives ought to do something : they failing, of whom could 
further requisition be made ? There were vessels to honor 
and vessels to dishonor ; to which class this one belonged, let 
God in his time reveal. A duty could not be passed on. It 
could not become the duty of the minister of a parish just 
because those who ought and could, would not, to spend 
time and money, to the neglect of his calling, in hunting up 
a boy whom he would not know what to do with if he had 
him, a boy whose home had been with the dregs of society. 

In justice to Mr. Sclater, it must be mentioned that he did 
not know Gibbie, even by sight. There remains room, how- 
ever for the question, whether, if Mr. Sclater had not been 
the man to change his course as he did afterwards, he would 
not have acted differently from the first. 

One morning, as he sat at breakfast with his wife, late Mrs. 
Bonniman, and cast, as is I fear, the rude habit of not a few 
husbands, not a few stolen glances, as he ate, over the morning 
paper, his eye fell upon a paragraph announcing the sudden 
death of a well-known William Fuller Withrop, of the emi- 
nent ship-building firm of Withrop and Playtell, of Greenock. 
Until he came to the end of the paragraph, his cup of coffee 
hung suspended in mid air. Then down it went untasted, 
he jumped from his seat, and hurried from the room. For 
the said paragraph ended with the remark, that the not un- 
frequent incapacity of the ablest of business men for looking 
the inevitable in the face with coolness sufficient to the 
making of a will, was not only a curious fact, but in the in- 
dividual case a pity, where two hundred thousand pounds was 
concerned. Had the writer been a little more philosophical 
still, he might have seen that the faculty for making money by 
no means involves judgement in the destination of it, and 
that the money may do its part for the good and evil without, 
just as well as with a will at the back of it. 

But though this was the occasion, it remains to ask what 
•was the cause of the minister s precipitancy. Why should 
Clement Sclater thereupon spring from his chair in such a 
state of excitement that he set his cup of coffee down upon 
its side instead of its bottom, to the detriment of the table- 
cloth, and of something besides, more unquestionably the 
.personal property of his wife ? Why was it that, heedless of 
her questions, backed although they were both by just anger 
and lawful curiosity, he ran straight from the room, and 


246 


SIR GIBBIE. 


the house, nor stayed until, at one and the same moment his 
foot was on the top step of his lawyer s door, and his 
hand upon its bell. No doubt it was somebody’s business, 
and perhaps it might be Mr. Sclater’s to find the heirs of men 
who died intestate ; but what made it so indubitably, so 
emphatically, so individualh^ so pressingly Mr. Sclater’s, that 
he forgot breakfast, tablecloth, wife, and sermon, all together 
that he might see to this boy’s rights ? Surely if they were 
rights, they could be in no such imminent danger as this 
haste seemed to signify. Was it only that he might be the 
first in the race to right him.? — and if so, then again, why? 
Was it a certainty indisputable, that any boy, whether such 
an idle tramp as the minister suppose this one to be or not, 
would be redeemed by the heirship to the hugest of fortunes ? 
Had it, some time before this, become at length easier for a 
rich boy to enter into the kingdom of heaven ? Or was it that 
with all his honesty, all his religion, all his churchism, all his 
Protestantism, and his habitual appeal to the word of God, 
the minister was yet a most reverential worshipper of Mammon, 
— not the old god mentioned in the New Testament of course, 
but a thoroughly respectable modern Mammon, decently 
dressed, persuing a subscription list ! No doubt justice ought 
to be done, and the young man over at Roughrigs was sure 
to be putting in a false claim, but where were the lawyers, 
whose business it was ? There was no need of a clergyman 
to remind them of their duty where the picking of such a car- 
cass was concerned. Had Mr. Sclater ever conceived the 
smallest admiration or love for the boy, I would not have 
made these reflections ; but in his ignorance of him and in- 
difference concerning him, he believed there would at least be 
trouble in proving him of approximately sound mind and 
decent intellect. What, then, I repeat and leave it, did all 
this excitement on the part of one of the iron pillars of the 
church indicate ? 

From his lawyer he would have gone at once to Mistress 
Croale — ^indeed I think he would have gone to her first, to 
warn her against imparting what information concerning 
Gibbie she might possess to any other than himself, but he 
had not an idea where she might even be heard of. He had 
cleansed his own parish, .as he thought, by pulling up the 
tare, contrary to commandment, and throwing it into his 
neighbor’s, where it had taken root, and grown a worse tare 
than before ; until at length, she who had been so careful 
over the manners and morals of her drMnka»'d?, wa<? n 
drunkard herself and a wanderer, wun uic repuxanun 01 ocmg 


THE MUCKLE HOOSE. 


247 


a far worse woman than she really was. For some years now 
she had made her living, one poor enough, by hawking small 
household necessities ; and not unfrequently where she ap- 
peared, the housewives bought of her because her eyes, and 
her nose, and an undefined sense of evil in her presence, 
made them shrink from the danger of offending her. But 
the real cause of the bad impression she made was, that she 
was sorely troubled with what is, by huge discourtesy, called 
a bad conscience — being in reality a conscience doing its duty 
so well that it makes the whole house uncomfortable. 

On her next return to the Daurfoot, as the part of the city 
was called where now she was most at home, she heard the 
astounding and welcome news that Gibbie had fallen heir to a 
large property, and that the reward of one hundred pounds — 
a modest sum indeed, but where was the good of wasting 
money, thought Mr. Sclater — had been proclaimed by tuck of 
drum, to any one giving such information as should lead to 
the discovery of Sir Gilbert Galbraith, commonly known as 
wee Sir Gibbie.'^ A description of him was added, and the 
stray was so kenspeckle,” that Mistress Croale saw the 
necessity of haste to any hope of advantage. She had nothing 
to guide her beyond the fact of Sir George’s habit, in his cups, 
of referring to the property on Daurside, and the assurance 
that with the said habit Gibbie must have been as familiar as 
herself. With this initiative, as she must begin somewhere, 
and could prosecute her business anywhere, she filled her 
basket and set out at once for Daurside. There, after a good 
deal of wandering hither and thither, and a search whose 
fruitlessness she probably owed to too great caution, she made 
the desired discovery unexpectedly and marvellously, and left 
behind her in the valley the reputation of having been on 
more familiar terms with the flood and the causes of it, than 
was possible to any one but one who kept company worse 
than human. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE MUCKLE HOOSE. 

The next morning, Janet felt herself in duty bound to 
make inquiry concerning those interested in Miss Galbraith. 
She made, therefore, the best of her way with Gibbie to the 
i Muckle House, but, as the latter expected, found it a ruin in^ 

f. 


248 


SIR GIBBIE. 


wilderness. Acres of trees and shrubbery had disappeared, 
and a hollow waste of sand and gravel was in their place. 
What was left of the house stood on the edge of a red gravelly 
precipice of fifty feet in height, at whose foot lay the stones of 
the kitchen-wing in which had been the room whence Gibbie 
carried Ginevra. The newer part of the house was gone from 
its very roots ; the ancient portion, all innovation wiped from 
It, stood grim, desolated, marred, and defiant as of old. Not 
a sign of life was about the place ; the very birds had fled. 
Angus had been there that same morning, and had locked or 
nailed up every possible entrance ; the place looked like a 
ruin of centuries. With difficulty they got down into the gulf, 
with more difficulty crossed the burn, clambered up the rocky 
bank on the opposite side, and knocked at the door of the 
gamekeeper’s cottage. But they saw only a little girl, who 
told them her father had gone to find the laird, that her 
mother was ill in bed, and Mistress Mac Farlane on her way 
to her own people. 

It came out afterwards that when Angus and the house- 
keeper heard Gibbie’s taps at the window, and, looking out, 
saw nobody there, but the burn within a few yards of the 
house, they took the warning for a supernatural interference 
to the preservation of their lives, and fled at once. Passing 
the foot of the stair. Mistress Mac Farlane shrieked to Ginevra 
to come, but ran on without waiting a reply. They told 
afterwards that she left the house with them, and that, sud- 
denly missing her, they went back to look for her, but could 
find her nowhere, and were just able to make their second 
escape with their lives, hearing the house fall into the burn 
behind them. Mistress Mac Farlane had been severe as the 
law itself against lying among the maids, but now, when it 
came to her own defence where she knew herself wrong, she 
lied just like one of the wicked. 

“My dear missie,’' said Janet, when they got home, “ye 
maun write to yer father, or he’ll be oot o’ ’s wuts aboot ye.” 

Ginevra wrote therefore to the duke’s, and to the laird’s 
usual address in London as well ; but he was on his way 
from the one place to the other when Angus overtook him, 
and received neither letter. 

Now came to the girl a few such days of delight, of free- 
dom, of life, as she had never even dreamed of. She roamed 
Glashgar with Gibbie, the gentlest, kindest, most interesting 
of companions. Wherever his sheep went, she went too, 
and to many places besides — some of them such strange, 
wild, terrible places, as would have terrified her without him. 


THE MUCKLE HOOSE. 


249 


How he startled her once by darting off a rock like a seagull, 
straight, head-foremost, into the Death-pot ! She screamed 
with horror, but he had done it only to amuse her; for, after 
K'hat seemed to her a fearful time, he came smiling up out of 
Ihe terrible darkness. What a brave, beautiful boy he was ! 
He never hurt anything, and nothing ever seemed to hurt 
tiim- And what a number of things he knew ! He showed 
her things on the mountain, things in the sky, things in the 
pools and streams wherever they went. He did better than 
tell her about them ; he made her see them, and then the 
things themselves told her. She was not always certain she 
saw just what he wanted her to see, but she always saw 
something that made her glad with knowledge. He had a 
New Testament Janet had given him, which he carried in hia 
pocket, and when she joined him, for he was always out with 
his sheep hours before she was up, she would generally find 
him seated on a stone, or lying in the heather, with the little 
book in his hand, looking solemn and sweet. But the mo- 
ment he saw her, he would spring merrily up to welcome hen 
It were indeed an argument against religion as strong as sad, 
if one of the children the kingdom specially claims, could 
not be possessed by the life of the Son of God without losing 
his simplicity and joyousness. Those of my readers will be 
the least inclined to doubt the boy, who, by obedience, have 
come to know its reward. For obedience alone holds wide 
the door for the entrance of the spirit of wisdom. There was 
as little to wonder at in Gibbie as there was much to love 
and admire, for from the moment when, yet a mere child, he 
heard there was such a one claiming his obedience, he began 
to turn to him the hearing ear, the willing heart, the ready 
hand. The main thing which rendered this devotion more 
easy and natural to him than to others was, that, more than 
in most, the love of man had in him prepared the way of the 
Lord. He who so loved the sons of men was ready to love 
the Son of Man the moment he heard of him ; love makes 
obedience a joy ; and of him who obeys all heaven is the pat- 
rimony — he is fellow-heir with Christ. 

On the fourth day, the rain, which had been coming and 
going, finally cleared off, the sun was again glorious, and the 
farmers began to hope a little for the drying and ripening of 
some portion of their crops. Then first Ginevra asked Gib- 
bie to take her down to Glashruach ; she wanted to see the 
ruin they had described to her. When she came near, and 
notions "changed into visible facts, she neither wept nor 
wailed. She felt very miserable, it is true, but it was at find* 


SIR GIBBIE. 


250 

ing that the evident impossibility of returning thither for a 
long time, woke in her pleasure and not pain. So utterly 
altered was the look of everything, that had she come upon 
it unexpectedly, she would not have recognized either place 
or house. They went up to a door. She seemed never to 
have seen it ; but when they entered, she knew it as one from 
the hall into a passage, which, with what it led to, being 
gone, the inner had become an outer door. A quantity of 
«and was heaped up in the hall, and the ^wainscot was wet 
and swelled and bulging. They went into the dining-room, 
it was a miserable sight — the very picture of the soul of a 
'drunkard. The thick carpet was sodden — spongy like a bed 
of moss after heavy rains ; the leather chairs looked diseased ; 
the color was all gone from the table ; the paper hung loose 
from the walls ; and everything lay where the water, after 
-floating it about, had let it drop as it ebbed. 

She ascended the old stone stair which led to her father’s 
rooms above, went into his study, in which not a hair was 
out of its place, and walked towards the window to look 
across to where once had been her own chamber. But as 
she approached it, there, behind the curtain, she saw her 
father, motionle^^, looking out. She turned pale, and stood. 
Even at such a time, had she known he was in the house, 
she would not have dared set her foot in that room. Gibbie, 
who had followed and entered behind her, perceived her hesi- 
tation, saw and recognized the back of the laird, knew that 
she was afraid of her father, and stood also waiting he knew 
not what. 

“Eh !” he said to himself, “hers is no like mine! Nae 
mony has had fathers sae guid’s mine.” 

Becoming aware of a presence, the laird half turned, and 
seeing Gibbie, imagined he had entered in a prowling way, 
supposing the place deserted. With stately offence he asked 
him what he wanted there, and waved his dismissal. Then 
first he saw another, standing white-faced, with eves fixed 
upon him. He turned pale also, and stood staring at her. 
The memory of that moment ever after disgraced him in his 
own eyes : for one instant of unreasoning weakness, he 
imagined he saw a ghost — believed what he said he knew to 
be impossible. It was but one moment but it might have 
been more, had not Ginevra walked slowly up to him, saying 
in a trembling voice, as if she expected the blame of all that 
had happened, “I couldn’t help it papa.” He took her in 
his arms, and, for the first time since the discovery . of hex 
atrocious familiarity with Donal, kissed her: She clung to 


THE MUCKLE HOOSE. 


251 


him, trembling now with pleasure as well as apprehension. 
But, alas ! there was no impiety in the faithlessness that pro- 
nounced such a joy too good to endure, and the end came 
yet sooner than she feared. For, when the father rose erect 
from her embrace, and was again the laird, there, to his 
amazement, still stood the odd-looking, outlandish intruder, 
smiling with the most impertinent interest ! Gibbie had for- 
gotten himself altogether, beholding what he took for a thor- 
ough reconciliation. 

Go away, boy. You have nothing to do here,'" said the 
laird, anger almost overwhelming his precious dignity. 

“Oh, papa!” cried Ginevra, clasping her hands, “that’s 
Gibbie 1 He saved my life. I should have been drowned 
but for him.” 

The laird was both proud and stupid, therefore more than 
ordinarily slow to understand what he was unprepared to 
hear. 

“ I am much obliged to him,” he said haughtily; “but 
there is no occasion for him to wait.” 

At this point his sluggish mind began to recall something : 
— why, this was the very boy he saw in the meadow with her 
that morning ! — He turned fiercely upon him where he lin- 
gered, either hoping for a word of adieu from Ginevra, or 
unwilling to go while she was uncomfortable. 

“Leave the house instantly,” he said, “or I will knock 
you down.” 

“O papa ! ” moaned Ginevra wildly — it was the braver of 
her that she was trembling from head to foot — “don’t speak 
so to Gibbie. He is a good boy. It was he that Angus 
whipped so cruelly — long ago : I have never been able to 
forget it.” 

Her father was confounded at her presumption : how dared 
she expostulate with him 1 She had grown a bold, bad girl ! 
Good heavens 1 Evil communications I 

“ If he does not get out of this directly,” he cried, “ I will 
have him whipped again. Angus.” 

He shouted the name, and its echo came back in a wild 
tone, altogether strange to Ginevra. She seemed struggling 
in the meshes of an evil dream. Involuntarily she uttered a 
cry of terror and distress. Gibbie was at, her side instantly, 
putting out his hand to comfort her. She was just laying 
hers on his arm, scarcely knowing what she did, when her 
father seized him, and dashed him to the other side of the 
room. He went staggering backwards, vainly trying to re- 
cover himself, and fell, his head striking against the wall. The 


252 


SIR GIBBIE. 


same instant Angus entered, saw nothing of Gibbie where he 
lay, and approached his master. But when he caught sight 
of Ginevra, he gave a gasp of terror that ended in a broken 
yell, and stared as if he had come suddenly on the verge of 
the bottomless pit, while all round his head his hair stood 
out as if he had been electrified. Before he came to himself, 
Gibbie had recovered and risen. He saw now that he could 
be of no service to Ginevra, and that his presence only made 
things worse for her. But he saw also that she was unhappy 
about him, and that must not be. He broke into such a 
merry laugh — and it had need to be merry, for it had to do 
the work of many w'ords of reassurance — that she could 
scarcely refrain from a half-hysterical response as he walked 
from the room. The moment he was out of the house, he 
began to sing ; and for many minutes, as he walked up the 
gulf hollowed by the Glashbum, Ginevra could hear the 
strange, other-world voice, and knew it was meant to hold 
communion with her and comfort her. 

“What do you know of that fellow, Angus!'" asked his 
master. 

“ He's the verra deevil himsel', sir," muttered Angus, whom 
Gibbie's laughter had in a measure brought to his senses. 

“You will see that he is sent off the property at once — and 
for good, Angus," said the laird. “ His insolence is- insuffer- 
able. The scoundrel ! " 

On the pretext of following Gibbie, Angus was only too 
glad to leave the room. Then Mr. Galbraith turned 
upon his daughter. 

“So, Jenny!" he said, with his loose lips pulled out 
straight, “that is the sort of companion you choose when left 
to yourself ! — a low, beggarly, insolent scamp ! — scarcely the 
equal of the brutes he has the charge of ! " 

“They're sheep, papa!" pleaded Ginevra, in a wail that 
rose almost to a scream. 

“I do believe the girl is an idiot!" said her father, and 
turned from her contemptously. 

“I think I am, papa," she sobbed. “Don’t mind me. 
Let me go away, and I will never trouble you any more." 
She would go to the mountain, she thought, and be a shep- 
herdess with Gibbie. 

Her father took her roughly by the arm, pushed her 
into a closet, locked the door, went and had his luncheon, 
and in the afternoon, having borrowed Snowball, took her 
just as she was, drove to meet the mail coach, and in the 
middle of the night was set down with her at the principal 


DAUR STREET. 


253 


hotel in the city, whence the next morning he set out early to 
find a school where he might leave her and his responsibility 
with her. 

When Gibbie knew himself beyond the hearing of Ginevra, 
his song died away, and he went home sad. The gentle girl 
had stepped at once from the day into the dark, and he was 
troubled for her. But he remembered that she had another 
father besides the laird, and comforted himself. 

When he reached home, he found his mother in serious 
talk with a stranger. The tears were in her eyes, and had 
been running down her cheeks, but she was calm and digni- 
fied as usual. 

“Here he comes ! she said as he entered. “The will o' 
the Lord be dene — noo an' for ever-mair ! I’m at his biddin'. 
— An' see’s Gibbie. " 

It was Mr. Sclater. The witch had sailed her brander well. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

DAUR STREET. 

One bright afternoon, towards the close of the autumn, the 
sun shining straight down one of the wide clean stony streets 
of the city, with a warmth which he had not been able to im- 
part to the air, a company of school-girls, two and two in 
long file, mostly with innocent, and, for human beings, rather 
uninteresting faces, was walking in orderly manner, a fe- 
male grenadier at its head, along the pavement, more than 
usually composed, for having the sun in' their eyes. 
Amongst the faces was one very different from the rest, a 
countenance almost solemn and a little sad, of still, regular 
features, in the eyes of which by loving eyes might have been 
read uneasy thought patiently carried, and the lack of some 
essential to conscious well-being. The other girls were look- 
ing on this side and that, eager to catch sight of anything to 
trouble the monotony of the daily walk ; but the eyes of this 
one were cast down, except when occasionally lifted in an- 
swer to words of the schoolmistress, the grenadier, by whose 
side she was walking. They were lovely brown eyes, trust- 
ful and sweet, and although, as I have said, a little sad, they 
never rose, even in reply to the commonest remark, without 
shining a little. Though younger than not a few of them, 
and very plainly dressed,, like all the others — I have a sus- 


254 


SIR GIBBIE. 


picion that Scotch mothers dress their girls rather too plainly, 
which tends to the growth of an undue and degrading love of 
dress — she was not so girlish, was indeed, in some respects, 
more of a young woman than even the governess who walked 
by the side of them. 

Suddenly came a rush, a confusion, a fluttering of the 
doves, whence or how none seemed to know, a gentle shriek 
from several of the girls, a general sense of question and no 
answer ; but, as their ruffled nerves composed themselves a 
little, there was the vision of the schoolmistress poking the 
point of her parasol at a heedless face, radiant with smiles, 
that of an odd-looking lad, as they thought, who had got 
hold of one of the daintily gloved hands of her companion, 
laid a hand which, considered conventionally, was not that 
of a gentleman, upon her shoulder, and stood, without a 
word, gazing in rapturous delight. 

“Go away, boy! What do you mean by such imperti- 
nence .? cried the outraged Miss Kimble, changing her thrust 
and poking in his chest the parasol with which she had found 
it impossible actually to assail his smiling countenance. Such 
a strange looking creature 1 He could not be in his sound 
senses, she thought. In the momentary mean time, however 
she had failed to observe that, after the first start and follow- 
ing tremor, her companion stood quite still, and was now 
looking in the lad’s face with roseate cheeks and tear-filled 
eyes, apparently forgetting to draw her hand from his, or to 
move her shoulder from under his caress. The next moment 
up, with hasty yet dignified step, came the familiar form of 
their own minister, the Rev. Clement Sclater, who with reproof 
in his countenance, which was red with annoyance and haste 
laid his hands on the lad’s shoulders to draw him from the 
prey on which he had pounced. 

“ Remember, you are not on a hill-side, but in a respect- 
able street,” said the reverend gentleman, a little foolishly. 

The youth turned his head over his shoulder, not other- 
wise changing his attitude, and looking at him with some 
bewilderment. Then, not he, but the young lady spoke. 

“Gibbie and I are old friends,” she said, and reaching up 
laid her free hand in turn on his shoulder, as if to protect 
him — for. needlessly, with such grace and strength before 
her, the vision of an old horror came rushing back on the 
mind of Ginevra. 

Gibbie had darted from his companion’s side some hun- 
dred yards off. The cap which Mr. Sclater had insisted on 
his wearing had fallen as he ran, and he had never missed 


DAUR STREET. 


255 


it : his hair stood out on all sides of his head, and the sun 
behind him shone in it like a glory, just as when first he ap- 
peared to Ginevra in the peat-moss, like an angel standing 
Qver her. Indeed, while to Miss Kimble and the girls he was 

mad-like object’' in his awkward ill-fitting clothes, made by 
a village tailor in the height of the village fashion, to Ginevra 
he looked hardly less angelic now than he did then. His ap- 
pearance, judged without prejudice, was rather that of a sailor 
boy on shore than a shepherd boy from the hills. 

“ Miss Galbraith !” said Miss Kimble, in the tone that indi- 
cates nostrils distended, “lam astonished at you ! What an. 
example to the school ! I never knew you misbehave yourself 
before ! Take your hand from this — this — very strange look- 
ing person’s shoulder directly.” 

Ginevra obeyed, but Gibbie stood as before. 

“ Remove your hand, boy, instantly,” cried Miss Kimble, 
growing more and more angry, and began knocking the hand 
on the girl’s shoulder with her parasol, which apparently 
Gibbie took for a joke, for he laughed aloud. 

“Pray do not alarm yourself, ma’am,” said Mr. Sclater, 
slowly recovering his breath ; he was not yet quite sure of 
Gibbie, or confident how best he was to be managed ; “ this 
young — gentleman is Sir Gilbert Galbraith, my ward. Sir Gil- 
bert this lady is Miss Kimble. You must have known her father 
well — the Rev. Matthew Kimble of the next parish to your 
own 

Gibbie smiled. He did not nod, for that would have meant 
that he did know him, and he did not remember having ever 
even heard the name of the Rev. Matthew Kimble. 

‘ ‘ Oh ! ” said the lady, who had ceased her battery, and 
stood bewildered and embarrassed — the more that by this time 
the girls had all gathered round, staring and wondering. 

Ginevra’s eyes too had filled with wonder ; she cast them 
down, and a strange smile began to play about her sw^eet 
strong mouth. All at once she was in the middle of a fairy 
tale, and had not a notion what was coming next. Her 
dumb shepherd boy a baronet ! — and, more wonderful still, a 
Galbraith ! She must be dreaming in the wide street ! The 
last she had seen of him was as he was driven from the house 
by her father, when he had just saved her life. That was but 
a few weeks ago, and here he was, called Sir Gilbert 
Galbraith ! It was a delicious bit of wonderment. 

“Oh !” said Miss Kimble a second time, recovering herself 
a little, “I see! A relative. Miss Galbraith ! I did not 
understand. That of course sets everything right — at least — 


SIR GIBBIE. 


256 

even then — the open street, you know ! You will understand, 
hlr. Sclater. I beg your pardon, Sir Gilbert. I hope I did 
not hurt you with my parasol 1” 

Gibbie again laughed aloud. 

‘‘Thank you,” said Miss Kimble confused, and annoyed 
with herself for being so, especially before her girls. “I 
should be sorry to have hurt you. Going to college, I pre- 
sume, Sir Gilbert ?” 

Gibbie looked at Mr. Sclater. 

‘ He is going to study with me for a while first,” answered 
the minister. 

“lam glad to hear it. He could not do better,” said 
Miss Kimble. “ Come, girls.” 

And with friendly farewells, she moved on, her train after 
her, thinking with herself what a boor the young fellow was — 
the young — baronet } Yes, he must be a baronet ; he was 
too young to have been knighted already. But where ever 
could he have been brought up ?” 

Mr. Sclater had behaved judiciously, and taken gentle 
pains to satisfy the old couple that they must part with 
Gibbie. One of the neighboring clergy knew Mr. Sclater 
well, and with him paid the old people a visit, to help them 
to dismiss any lingering doubt that he was the boy’s guardian 
legally appointed. To their own common sense indeed it 
became plain that, except some such story was true, there 
could be nothing to induce him to come after Gibbie, or 
desire to take charge of the outcast ; but they did not feel 
thoroughfy satisfied until Mr. Sclater brought Fergus Dufif to 
the cottage, to testify to him as being what he pretended. It 
was a sore trial, but amongst the griefs of losing him, no fear 
of his forgetting them was included. Mr. Sclater s main 
difficulty was with Gibbie himself. At first he laughed at the 
absurdity of his going away from his father and mother and 
the sheep. They told him he was Sir Gilbert Galbraith. He 
answered on his slate, as well as by signs which Janet at least 
understood perfectly, that he had told them so, and had been 
so all the time, “and what differ dos that mak Y he added. 
Mr. Sclater told him he was — or would be, at least, he took 
care to add, when he came of age — a rich man as well as a 
baronet. 

“ Writch men,” wrote Gibbie, “dee as they like, and Ise 
bide.” 

Mr. Sclater told him it was only poor boys who could do 
as they pleased, for the law looked after boys like him, so 
that, when it came into their hands, they might be capable of 


EAUR STREET. 


257 


using their money properly. Almost persuaded at length 
that he had no choice, that he could no longer be his own 
master, until he was one and twenty, he turned and looked at 
Janet, his eyes brimful of tears. She gave him a little nod. 
He rose and went out, dimed the crest of Glashgar, and did 
not return to the cottage till midnight. 

In the morning appeared on his countenance signs of 
unusual resolve. Amid the many thoughts he had had the 
night before, had come the question — what he would do with 
the money when he had it — first of all what he could do for 
Janet and Robert and every one of their family ; and naturally 
enough to a Scotch boy, the first thing that occurred to him 
was, to give Donal money to go to college like Fergus Duff. 
In that he knew he made no mistake. It was not so easy to 
think of things for the rest, but that was safe. Had not Donal 
said twenty times he would not mind being a herd all his life, 
if only he could go to college first ? But then he began to 
think what a long time it was before he would be one and 
twenty, and what a number of things might come and go be- 
fore then : Donal might by that time have a wife and children, 
and he could not leave them to go to college ! Why should 
not Mr. Sclater manage somehow that Donal should go at 
once ? It was now the end almost of October, and the college 
opened in November. Some other rich person would lend 
them the money, and he would pay it, with compound 
interest, when he got his. Before he went to bed he got his 
slate, and wrote as follows : 

“ my dear minister. If you will teak Donal too, and lett 
him go to the kolledg, I will go with you as seens ye like ; 
butt if ye will not, I will runn away. ’" 

When Mr. Sclater, who had a bed at the gamekeeper’s, ap- 
peared the next morning, anxious to conclude the business, 
and get things in motion for their departure, Gibbie handed 
him the slate the moment he entered the cottage, and while 
he read, stood watching him. 

Now Mr. Sclater was a prudent man, and always looked 
ahead, therefore apparently took a long time to read Gibbie’s 
very clear, although unscholarly communication ; before 
answering it, he must settle the probability of what Mrs. Sclater 
would think of the proposal to take two savages into her house 
together, where also doubtless the presence of this Donal 
would greatly interfere with the process of making a gentle- 
man of Gibbie. Finable to satisfy himself, he raised his head 
at length, unconsciously shaking it as he did so. That instant 
Gibbie was out of the house. Mr. Sclater, perceiving the 


SIR GIBBIE. 


j'58 

blunder he had made, hurried after him, but he was already 
out of sight. Returning in some dismay, he handed the slate 
to Janet, who, with sad, resigned countenance, was baking. 
She rubbed the oatmeal dough from her hands, took the slate, 
and read with a smile. 

Ye maunna tak Gibbie for a young cowt, Maister Sclater, 
an’ think tobrak him in,” she said, after a thoughtful pause, 

‘ ‘ or ye’ll hae te learn yer mistak. There’s no eneuch o’ him- 
sel’ in him for ye to get a grip o’ ’m by that han’le. He aye 
kens what he wad hae, an’ he’ll aye gettit, as sure’s it’ll aye be 
richt. As anent Donal, Donal’s my ain, an’ I s’ say naething. 
Sit ye doon, sir ; ye’ll no see Gibbie the day again. 

“ Is there no means of getting at him, my good woman?” 
said Mr. Sclater, miserable at the prospect of a day utterly 
wasted. 

“I cud gie yesicht o’ ’im, I daursay, but what better wad 
ye be for that ? Gien ye hed a’ the lawyers o’ Embrough at 
yer back, ye wadna touch Gibbie upo’ Glashgar. ” 

“But you could persuade him, 1 am sure. Mistress Grant. 
You have only to call him in your own way, and he will come 
at once.” 

“ What wad ye hae me perswaud him till, sir? To ony- 
thing ’at’s richt, Gibbie wants nae perswaudin’ ; an’ for this 
’at’s atween ye, the laddies are jist verra brithers, an’ I hae no 
richt to interfere wi’ what the tane wad for the tither, the thing 
seemin’ to me rizon eneuch.” 

“ What sort of lad is this son of yours? The boy seems 
much attached to him !” 

“ He’s a laddie ’at’s been gien ower till’s bulk sin’ ever I 
learnt him to read mysel’,” Janet answered. “But he’ll be 
here the nicht, I’m thinkin’, to see the last o’ puir Gibbie, an' 
ye can jeedge for yersel’. ” 

It required but a brief examination of Donal to satisfy Mr. 
Sclater that he was more than prepared for the university. 
But I fear me greatly the time is at hand when such as Donal 
will no more be able to enter her courts. Unwise and un- 
patriotic are any who would rather have a few prime scholars 
sitting about the wells of learning, than see those fountains 
flow freely for the poor, who are yet the strength of a country. 
It is better to have many upon the high road of learning, than 
a few even at its goal, if that were possible. 

As to Donal’s going to Mr. Sclater’s house, Janet soon 
relieved him.- 

‘ ‘ Na, na, sir, ” she said ; “it wad be to learn w’ys ’at wadna 
be fittin’ a puir lad like him. ” ’ 


DAUR STREET. ' 259 

“ It would be much safer for him, said Mr. Sclater, but 
incidentally. 

“ Gien I cudna lippen my Donal tilfs ain company an’ the 
hunger for better, I wad begin to doobt wha made the warl’,” 
said his mother ; and Donal’s face flushed with pleasure at her 
confidence. “ Na, he maun get a garret roomie some gait i’ 
the toon, an’ there hand till’s buik ; an ye’ll lat Gibbie gang 
an’ see him whiles whan he can be spared. There maun be 
many a dacent wuman ’at wad be pleased to tak him in.” 

Mr. Sclater seemed to himself to foresee no little trouble in 
his new responsibility, but consoled himself that he would 
have more money at his command, and in the end would sit, 
as it were, at the fountain-head of large wealth. Already, 
with his wife’s property, he was a man of consideration ; but 
he had a great respect for money, and much overrated its value 
as a means of doing even what he called good : religious 
people generally do with a most unchristian dullness. We 
are not told that the Master made the smallest use of money 
for his end. When he paid the temple-rate, he did it to avoid 
giving offence ; and he defended the woman who divinely 
wasted it. Ten times more grace and magnanimity would be 
needed, wisely and lovingly to avoid making a fortune, than 
it takes to spend one for what are called good objects when 
it is made. 

When they met Miss Kimble and her ‘'young ladies,” they 
w^ere on there way from the coach-office to the minister’s 
house in Daur street. Gibbie knew every corner, and strange 
was the swift variety of thoughts and sensations that went 
filing through his mind. Up this same street he had tended 
the wavering steps of a well-known if not highly respected 
town-councillor ! that was the door, where one cold morning 
of winter, the cook gave him a cup of hot coffee and a roll ! 
What happy days they were, with their hunger and adventure ! 
There had always been food and warmth about the city, and 
he had come in for his share ! The Master was in its streets 
as certainly as on the rocks of Glashgar. Not one sheep did 
he lose sight of, though he could not do so much for those 
that would not follow, and had to have the dog sent after 
them ! 


26 o 


SIR GIBBIE, 


CHAPTER XL. 

MRS. SCLATER. 

Gibbie was in a dream of mingled past and future delights, 
when his conductor stopped at a large and important-looking 
house, with a flight of granite steps up to the door. Gibbie 
had never been inside such a house in his life, but when they 
entered, he was not much impressed. He did look with a 
little surprise, it is true, but it was down, not up ; he felt his 
feet walking soft, and wondered for a moment that there 
should he a field of grass in a house. Then he gave a glance 
round, thought it a big place, and followed Mr. Sclater up 
the stair with the free mounting step of the Glashgar shep- 
herd. Forgetful and unconscious he valked into the draw- 
ing-room with his bonnet on his head. Mrs. Sclater rose 
when they entered, and he approached her with a smile of 
welcome to the house which he carried always full of guests, 
in his bosom. He never thought of looking to her to wel- 
come him. She shook hands with him in a doubtful kind of 
way. 

“ How do you do, Sir Gilbert.? she said. Only ladies 
are allowed to Avear their caps in the drawing-room, you 
know,” she added, in a tone of courteous and half-rally- 
ing rebuke, speaking from a flowery height of conscious 
superiority. 

What she meant by the drawing-room, Gibbie had not an 
an idea. He looked at her head, and saw no cap ; she 
had nothing upon it but a quantity of beautiful black hair ; 
then suddenly remembered his bonnet ; he knew well 
enough bonnets had to be taken off in house or cottage : he 
had never done so because he had never worn a bonnet. But 
it was with a smile of amusement only that he now took it 
off. He was so free from selfishness that he knew nothing of 
shame. Never a shadow of blush at his bad manners tinged 
his cheek. He put the cap in his pocket, and catching sight 
of a footstool by the corner of the chimney-piece, was so 
strongly reminded of his creepie by the cottage-hearth, which 
big lad as he now was, he had still haunted, that he went at 
once and seated himself upon it. From this coign of van- 
tage he looked round the room with a gentle curiosity, cast- 


MRS. SCLATER. 


261 


ing a glance of pleasure every now and then at Mrs. Sclater, 
to whom her husband in a manner somewhat constrained 
because of his presence, was recounting some of the incidents 
of his journey, making choice, after the manner of many, 
of the most commonplace and uninteresting. 

Gibbie had not been educated in the relative grandeur of 
thing of this world, and he regarded the things he now saw 
just as things ; without the smallest notion of any power in them 
to confer superiority by being possessed : can a slave knight 
his master ? The reverend but poor Mr. Sclater was not 
above the foolish consciousness of importance accruing from 
the refined adjuncts of a more needy corporeal existence ; his 
wife would have felt out of her proper sphere had she ceased 
to see them around her, and would have lost some of ber 
aplomb ; but the divine idiot Gibbie was incapable even of that 
notion that they mattered a straw to the life of any man. 
Indeed, to compare man with man was no habit of his ; hence 
it cannot be wonderful that stone hearth and steel grate, clay 
floor and Brussels carpet were much the same to him. Man 
was the one sacred thing. Gibbie’s unconscious creed was a 
powerful leveller, but it was a leveller up, not down. 
The heart that revered the beggar could afford to be incapable 
of homage to position. His was not one of those contempti- 
ble natures which have no reverence because they have no as- 
piration which think themselves fine because they acknow- 
ledge nothing superior to their own essential baseness. To 
Gibbie everv man was better than himself. It was for him a 
sudden and strange descent — from the region of poetry and 
closest intercourse with the strong and gracious and vital 
simplicities of Nature, h uman and other, to the rich common- 
places, among them not a few fashionable vulgarities, ofan ordi- 
nary well-appointed house, and ordinary well-appointed people 
but however bedizened, humanity was there ; and he who 
does not love human more than any other nature has not life 
in himself, does not carry his poetry in liim, as Gibbie did, 
therefore cannot find it except where it has been shown to him. 
Neither was a common house like this by any means devoid 
of any things to please him. If there was not the lovely 
homeliness of the cottage which at once gave all it had, there 
was a certain stateliness which afforded its own reception ; if 
there was little harmony, there were individual colors that 
afforded him delight — as for instance, afterwards, the crimson 
covering the walls of the dinning-room, whose color was of that 
soft deep-penetrable character which a flock paper alone can 
carry. Then there were pictures, bad enough most of them. 


262 


SIR GIBBIE. 


no doubt, in the eyes of the critic, but endlessly suggestive, 
therefore endlessly delightful to Gibbie. It is not the man 
who knows most about Nature that is hardest to please, how- 
ever he may be hardest to satisfy, with the attempt to follow 
her. The accomplished poet will derive pleasure from verses 
which are a mockery to the soul of the unhappy mortal whose 
business is judgment — the most thankless of all labors, and 
justly so. Certain fruits one is unable to like until he has 
eaten them in their perfection ; after that, the remainder in 
them of the perfect will enable him to enjoy even the inferior 
a little recognizing their kind — always provided he be not 
one given to judgment — a connoisseur, that is, one who cares 
less for the tfuth than for the knowing comparison of one 
embodiment of it with another. Gibbie’s regard then, as it 
wandered round the room, lighting on this color, and that 
texture, in curtain, or carpet or worked screen, found interest 
and pleasure. Amidst the mere upholstery of houses and hearts, 
amidst the common life of the common crowd, he was, and 
bad to be, what he had learned to be amongst the nobility 
and in the palace of Glashgar. 

Mrs. Sclater, late Mrs. Bonniman, was the widow of a 
merchant who had made his money in foreign trade, and to 
her house Mr. Sclater had flitted when he married her. She 
was a well-bred woman, much the superior of her second 
husband in the small duties and graces of social life, and, 
already a sufferer in some of his not very serious grossieretes, 
regarded with no small apprehension the arrival of one in 
whom she expected the same kind of thing in largely exag- 
gerated degree. She did not much care to play the mother 
to a bear cub, she said to her friends, with a good-humored 
laugh. “Just think,'’ she added, “with such a childhood 
as the poor boy had, what a mass of vulgarity must be lying 
in that uncultivated brain of his ! It is no small mercy, as 
I'.Ir. Sclater says, that our ears at least are safe. Poor boy ! ” 
She was a woman of about forty, rather tall, of good com- 
plexion tending to the ruddy, with black smooth shining hair 
parted over a white forehead, black eyes, nose a little aqui- 
line, good mouth, and fine white teeth — altogether a hand- 
some woman — some notion of whose style may be gathered 
from the fact t hat, upon the testimony of her cheval glass, 
she preferred satin to the richest of silks, and almost always 
wore it. Now and then she would attempt a change, but 
was always defeated and driven back into satin. She was 
precise in her personal rules, but not stiff in the manners 
wherein she embodied them : these were indeed just a little 


MRS. SCLATER. 


263 

florid and wavy, a trifle profuse in their grace. She kept an 
excellent table, and every appointment about the house was 
in good style — a favorite phrase with her. She was her own 
housekeeper, an exact mistress, but considerate, so that her 
servants had no bad time of it. She was sensible, kind, 
always responsive to appeal, had scarcely a thread of poetry 
or art in her upper texture, loved fair play, was seldom in the 
wrong, and never confessed it when she was. But when she 
saw it, she took some pains to avoid being so in a similar 
way again. She held hard by her own opinion ; was capable 
of a mild admiration of truth and righteousness in another ; 
had one or two pet commandments to which she paid more 
attention than to the rest ; was a safe member of society, 
never carrying tales ; was kind with condescension to the 
poor, and altogether a good wife for a minister of Mr. Set- 
ter's sort. She knew how to hold her own with any who 
would have established superiority. A little more coldness, 
pride, indifference, and careless restraint, with just a touch oi 
rudeness, would have given her the freedom of the best soci- 
ety, if she could have got into it. Altogether it would not 
have been easy to find one who could do more for Gibbie in 
respect for the social rappoi'ts that seemed to await him. 
Even some who would gladly themselves have undertaken 
the task, admitted that he might have fallen into much less 
qualified hands. Her husband was confident that, if any- 
body could, his wife would make a gentleman of Sir Gilbert ; 
and he ought to know, for she had done a good deal of pol- 
ishing upon him. 

She was now seated on a low chair at the other side of the 
fire leaning back at a large angle, slowly contemplating out 
of her black eyes the lad on the footstool, whose blue eyes 
she saw wandering about the room, in a manner neither 
vague nor unintelligent, but showing more of interest than of 
either surprise or admiration. Suddenly he turned them full 
upon her ; they met hers, and the light rushed into them like 
a torrent, breaking forth after its way in a soulful smile. I 
hope my readers are not tired of the mention of Gibbie’s 
smiles : I can hardly avoid it ; they were all Gibbie had for 
the small coin of intercourse ; and if my readers care to be 
just, they will please to remember that they have been spared 
many a he said and she said. Unhappily for me there is no 
way of giving the delicate differences of those smiles. Much 
of what Gibbie perhaps felt the more that he could not say it, 
had got into the place where the smiles are made, and, like a 
variety of pollens, had impregnated them with all shades and 


264 


SIR GIBBIE. 


colors of expressions, whose varied significance those who 
had known him longest, dividing and distinguishing, had 
gone far towards being able to interpret. In that which now 
shone on Mrs. Sclater, there was something, she said the 
next day to a friend, which no woman could resist, and 
which must come of his gentle blood. If she could have 
seen a few of his later ancestors at least, she would have 
doubted if they had anything to do with that smile beyond 
its mere transmission from “the first stock-father of gentle- 
ness.” She responded, and from that moment the lady and 
the shepherd lad were friends. 

Now that a real introduction had taken place between 
them, and in her answering smile Gibbie had met the lady 
herself, he proceeded, in most natural sequence, without the 
smallest shyness or suspicion of rudeness, to make himself 
acquainted with the phenomena presenting her. As he would 
have gazed upon a rainbow, trying perhaps to distinguish the 
undistinguishable in the meeting and parting of its colors, 
only that here behind was the all-powerful love of his own, 
he began to examine the lady’s face and form, dwelling and 
contemplating with eyes innocent as any baby’s. This lasted ; 
but did not last long before it began to produce in the lady a 
certain uncertain embarrassment, a something she did not 
quite understand, therefore could not account for, and did 
not like. Why should she mind eyes such as those making 
acquaintance with what a whole congregation might see any 
Sunday at church, or for that matter, the whole city on Mon- 
day, if it pleased to look upon her as she walked shopping 
in Pearl street ? Why indeed ? Yet she began to grow rest- 
less, and feel as if she wanted to let down her veil. She could 
have risen and left the room, but she had “ no notion ” of 
being thus put to flight by her bear-cub ; she was ashamed 
that a woman of her age and experience should be so foolish ; 
and besides, she wanted to come to an understanding with 
herself as to what herself meant by it. She did not feel that 
the boy was rude ; she was not angry with him as with one 
taking a liberty ; yet she did wish he would not look at her 
like that ; and presently she was relieved. 

Her hands, which had been lying all the time in her lap, 
white upon black, had at length drawn and fixed Gibbie’s at- 
tention. They were very lady-like hands, long-fingered, and 
with the orthodox long-oval nails, each with a quarter seg- 
ment of a pale rising moon at the root — hands nearly fault- 
less, and, I suspect, considered by their owner entirely such 
■ — but a really faultless hand, who has ever seen? — To Gib- 


MRS. SCLATER. 


265 

bie’s eyes they were such beautiful things, that, after a mo- 
ment or two spent in regarding them across the length of the 
hairy hearthrug, he got up, took his footstool, crossed with it 
to the other side of the fire, set it down by Mrs. Sclater, and 
reseated himself. Without moving more than her fine neck, 
she looked down on him curiously, wondering what would 
come next ; and what did come next was, that he laid one 
of his hands on one of those that lay in the satin lap ; then, 
struck with the contrast between them, burst out laughing. 
But he neither withdrew his hand, nor showed the least shame 
of the hard, brown, tarry-seamed, strong, though rather small 
prehensile member, with its worn and blackened nails, but 
let it calmly remain outspread, side by side with the white, 
shapely, spotless, gracious and graceful thing, adorned, in 
sign of the honor it possessed in being the hand of Mrs. 
Sclater, — it was her favorite hand, — with a half hoop of fine 
blue-green turkises, and a limpid activity of many diamonds. 
She laughed also — who could have helped it ? that laugh 
would have set silver bells ringing in responsive sympathy ! — 
and patted the lumpy thing which, odd as the fact might be, 
was also called a hand, with short little pecking pats ; she 
did not altogether like touching so painful a degeneracy from 
the ideal. But his very evident admiration of hers, went far 
to reconcile her to his, — as was but right, seeing a man’s ad- 
mirations go farther to denote him truly, than the sort of 
hands or feet either he may happen to have received from this 
or that vanished ancestor. Still she found his presence — 
more than his proximity — discomposing, and was glad when 
]\Ir. Sclater, who, I forgot to mention, had left the room, re- 
turned and took Gibbie away to show him his, and instruct 
him what changes he must make upon his person in prepara- 
tion for dinner. 

When Mrs. Sclater went to bed that night she lay awake a 
good while thinking, and her main thought was — what could 
be the nature of the peculiar feeling which the stare of the 
boy had roused in her? Nor was it long before she began to 
suspect that, unlike her hand beside his, she showed to some 
kind of disadvantage beside the shepherd lad. Was it dis- 
satisfaction then with herself that his look had waked ? She 
was aware of nothing in which she had failed or been in the 
wrong of late. She never did anything to be called wrong 
— by herself, that is, or indeed by her neighbors. She had 
never done anything very wrong, she thought ; and anything 
wrong she had done, was now so far away and so nearly for- 
gotten, that it seemed to have left her almost quite innocent ; 


266 


SIR GIBBIE. 


yet the look of those blue eyes, searching, searching, without 
seeming to know it, made her feel something like the dis- 
comfort of a dream of expected visitors, with her house not 
quite in a condition to receive them. She must see to her 
hidden house. She must take dust-pan and broom and go 
about a little. For these are purifications in which king and 
cowboy must each serve himself. The things that come out 
of a man are they that defile him, and to get rid of them, a 
man must go into himself, be a convict, and scrub the floor 
of his cell. Mrs. Sclater's cell was very tidy and respectable 
for a cell, but no human consciousness can be clean, until it 
lies wide open to the eternal sun, and the all-potent wind ; 
until, from a dim-lighted cellar it becomes a mountain-top. 


CHAPTER XLI. 

INITIATION. 

Mrs. Sclater’s first piece of business the following morn- 
ing was to take Gibbie to the most fashionable tailor in the 
city, and have him measured for such clothes as she judged 
suitable for a gentleman’s son. As they went through the 
streets, going and returning, the handsome lady walking with 
the youth in the queer country-made clothes, attrached no 
little attention, and most of the inhabitants who saw them, 
having by this time heard of the sudden importance of their 
old acquaintance, wee Sir Gibbie, and the search after him, 
were not long in divining the secret of the strange conjunc- 
tion. But although Gibbie seemed as much at home with 
the handsome lady as if she had been his own mother, and 
walked by her side with a step and air as free as the wind 
from Glashgar, he felt anything but comfortable in his per- 
son. For here and there Tammy Breek’s seams came too 
close to his skin, and there are certain kinds of hardship 
which, though the sufferer be capable of the patience of Job, 
will yet fret. Gibbie could endure cold or wet or hunger, 
and sing like a mavis ; he had borne pain upon occasion 
with at least complete submission ; but the tight arm-holes 
of his jacket could hardly be such a decree of Providence as 
it was rebellion to interfere with ; and therefore I do not re- 
late what follows, as a pure outcome of that benevolence in 
him which was yet equal to the sacrifice of the best fitting of 
garments. As they walked along Pearl-street, the hand- 


INITIATION. ^67 

somest street of the city, he darted suddenly from Mrs. 
Sclater’s side, and crossed to the opposite pavement. She 
stood and looked after him wondering, hitherto he had broken 
out in no vagaries ! As he ran, worse and worse ? he began 
tugging al his jacket, and had just succeeded in getting it off 
as he arrived at the other side, in time to stop a lad of about 
his own size, who was walking bare-footed and in his shirt 
sleeves — if shirt or sleeves be a term applicable to anything 
visible upon him. With somethtng of the air of the tailor 
who had just been waiting upon himself, but with as much 
kindness and attention as if the boy had been Donal Grant 
instead of a stranger, he held the jacket for him to put on. 
The lad lost no time in obeying, gave him one look and nod 
of gratitude, and ran down a flight of steps to a street below, 
never doubting his benefactor an idiot, and dreading some 
one to whom he belonged would be after him presently to 
reclaim the gift. Mrs. Sclater saw the proceeding with some 
amusement and a little foreboding. She did not mourn the 
fate of the jacket ; had it been the one she had just ordered, 
or anything like it, the loss would have been to her not in- 
significant : but was the boy altogether in his right mind ? 
She in her black satin on the opposite pavement, and the lad 
scrubbing down the stair in the jacket, were of similar mind 
concerning the boy, who, in shirt sleeves indubitable, now 
came bounding back across the wide street. He took his 
place by her side as if nothing had happened, only that he 
went along swinging his arms as if he had just been delivered 
from manacles. Having for so many years roamed the streets 
with scarcely any clothes at all, he had no idea of looking 
peculiar, and thought nothing more of the matter. 

But Mrs. Sclater soon began to find that even in regard to 
social externals, she could never have had a readier pupil. 
He watched her so closely, and with such an appreciation of 
the difference in things of the kind between her and her hus- 
band, that for a short period he was in danger of falling into 
habits of movement and manipulation too dainty for a man, 
a fault happily none the less objectionable in the eyes of his 
instructress, that she, on her own part, carried the feminine a 
little beyond the limits of the natural. But here also she 
found him so readily set right, that she imagined she was 
going to do anything with him she pleased, and was not a 
little proud of her conquest, and the power she had over the 
young savage. She had yet to discover that Gibbie had his 
own ideas too, that it was the general noble teachableness 
and affection of his nature that had brought about so speedy 


268 


SIR GIBBIE. 


an understanding between them in everything wherein he 
saw she could show him the better way, but that nowhere 
else would he feel bound or inclined to follow her injunctions. 
Much and strongly as he was drawn to her by her ladyhood, 
and the sense she gave him of refinement and familiarity with 
the niceties, he had no feeling that she had authority over 
him. So neglected in his childhood, so absolutely trusted by 
the cottagers, who had never found in him the slightest occa- 
sion for the exercise of authority, he had not an idea of owing 
obedience to any but the One. Gifted from the first with a 
heart of devotion, the will of the Master set the will of the 
boy upon the throne of service, and what he had done from 
inclination he was now capable of doing against it, and 
would most assuredly do against it if ever occasion should 
arise ; what other obedience was necessary to his perfection ? 
For his father and mother and Donal he had reverence — pro- 
found and tender, and for no one else as yet among men ; 
but at the same time something far beyond respect for every 
human shape and show. He would not, could not make 
any of the social distinctions which to Mr. and Mrs. Sclater 
seemed to belong to existence itself, and their recognition 
essential to the living of their lives ; whence it naturally re- 
sulted that upon occasion he seemed to them devoid of the 
first rudiments of breeding, without respect or any notion of 
subordination. 

Mr. Sclater was conscientious in his treatment of him. The 
very day following that of their arrival, he set to work with 
him. He had been a tutor, was a good scholar, and a sensible 
teacher, and soon discovered how to make the most of Gibbie’s 
facility in writing. He was already possessed of a little Latin, 
and after having for some time accustomed him to translate 
from each language into the other, the minister began to think 
it might be of advantage to learning in general, if at least half 
the boys and girls at school, and three parts of every Sunday 
congregation, were as dumb as Sir Gilbert Galbraith. When 
at length he set him to Greek, he was astonished at the avidity 
with which he learned it. He had hardly got him over 
when he found him one day so intent upon the Greek Testa- 
ment, that, exceptionally keen of hearing as he was, he was 
quite unaware that anyone had entered the room. 

What Gibbie made of Mr. Sclater’s prayers, either in congre- 
gational or family devotion, I am at some loss to imagine. 
Beside his memories of the direct fervid outpouring and appeal 
of Janet, in which she seemed to talk face to face with God, 
they must have seamed to him like the utterances of some 


INITIATION. ' 


269 

curiously constructed wooden automaton, doing its best to 
pray, without any soul to be saved, any weakness to be made 
strong, any doubt to be cleared, any hunger to be filled. 
What can be less like religion than the prayers of a man whose 
religion is his profession, and who, if he were not “in the 
church,” would probably never pray at all ? Gibbie, however, 
being the reverse of critical, must, I can hardly doubt, have 
seen in them a good deal more than was there — a pitiful faculty 
to the man who cultivates that of seeing in everything less than 
is there. 

To Mrs. Sclater, it was at first rather depressing, and for a 
time grew more and more painful, to have a live silence by 
her side. But when she came into rapport with the natural 
utterance of the boy, his presence grew more like a constant 
speech, and that which was best in her was not unfrequently 
able to say for the boy what he would have said could he 
have spoken : the nobler part of her nature was in secret alli- 
ance with the thoughts and feelings of Gibbie. But this 
relation between them, though perceptible, did not become 
at all plain to her until after she had established more definite 
means of communication. Gibbie, for his part, full of the 
holy simplicities of the cottage, had a good many things to 
meet which disappointed, perplexed, and shocked him. Mid- 
dling good people are shocked at the wickedness of the wicked ; 
Gibbie, who knew both so well, and what ought to be expected, 
was shocked only at the wickedness of the righteous. He 
never came quite to understand Mr. Sclater : the inconsistent 
never can be understood. That only which has absolute rea- 
son in it can be understood of man. There is a bewilder- 
ment about the very nature of evil which only he who made 
us capable of evil that we might be good, can comprehend. 


SIR GIBBIE. 


2*]0 


CHAPTER XLII. 

DONALDS LODGING. 

Donal had not accompanied Mr. Sclater and his ward, as 
he generally styled him, to the city, but continued at the 
Mains until another herd-boy should be found to take his 
place. All were sorry to part with him, but no one desired 
to stand in the way of his good fortune by claiming his service 
to the end of his half-year. It was about a fortnight after 
Gibbie’s departure when he found himself free. His last night 
he spent with his parents on Glashgar, and the next morning 
set out in the moonlight to join the coach, with some cakes 
and a bit of fresh butter tied up in a cotton hankerchief He 
wept at leaving them, nor was too much excited with the 
prospect before him to lay up his mother’s parting words in 
his heart. For it is not every son that will not learn of his 
mother. He who will not, goes to the school of Gideon. 
Those last words of Janet to her Donal were, “Noo, min’ yer 
no a win’le strae {a straw dried on its root), but a growin’ stalk 
’at maun luik till ’ts corn.” 

When he reached the spot appointed, there already was the 
cart from the Mains, with his kist containing all his earthly 
possessions. They did not half fill it, and would have tumbled 
about in the great chest, had not the bounty of Mistress 
Jean complemented its space with provision — a cheese, a bag 
of oatmeal, some oatcakes, and a pound or two of the best 
butter in the world ; for now that he was leaving them, a 
herd-boy no more, but a colliginer, and going to be a gentle- 
man, it was right to be liberal. The box, whose ponderosity 
was unintelligible to its owner, having been hoisted, amid 
the smiles of the passengers, to the mid region of the roof of 
the coach, Donal clambered after it, and took, for the first 
time in his life, his place behind four horses— to go softly 
rushing through the air towards endless liberty. It was to 
the young poet an hour of glorious birth — in which there 
seemed nothing too strange, nothing but what should have 
come. I fancy, when they die, many will find themselves 
more at home than ever they were in this world. But Donal 
is not the subject of my story, and I must not spend upon 
him. I will only say that his feelings on this grand occasion 


DONALDS LODGING. 


271 


were the less satisfactory to himself, that, not being poet 
merely, but philosopher as well, he sought to understand 
them : the mere poet, the man-bird, would have been con- 
tent with them in themselves. But if he who is both, does 
not rise above both by learning obedience, he will have a fine 
time of it between them. 

The streets of the city at length received them with noise 
and echo. At the coach-office Mr. Sclater stood waiting, 
welcomed him with dignity rather than kindness, hired a 
porter with his truck whom he told where to take the chest, 
said Sir Gilbert would doubtless call on him the next day, 
and left him with the porter. 

It was a cold afternoon, the air half mist, half twilight. 
Donal followed the rattling, bumping truck over the stones, 
walking close behind it, almost in the gutter. They made 
one turning, went a long way through the narrow, sometimes 
crowded, Widdiehill, and stopped. The man opened a door, 
returned to the truck, and began to pull the box from it. 
Donal gave him effective assistance, and they entered with it 
between them. There was just light enough from a tallow 
candle with a wick like a red-hot mushroom, to see that they 
\vere in what appeared to Donal a house in most appalling 
disorder, but was in fact a furniture shop; The porter led 
the way up a dark stair, and Donal followed with the end of 
the trunk. At the top was a large room, into which the last 
of the day glimmered through windows covered with the 
smoke and dust of years, showing this also full of furniture, 
chiefly old. A lane through the furniture led along the room 
to a door at the other end. To Donal’s eyes it looked a 
dreary place ; but when the porter opened the other door, he 
saw a neat little room with a curtained bed, a carpeted floor, 
a fire burning in the grate, a kettle on the hob, and the table 
laid for tea : this w'as like a bit of a palace, for he had never 
in his life even looked into such a chamber. The porter set 
down his end of the chest, said “Guid nicht to ye,” and 
walked out, leaving the door open. 

Knowing nothing about tov/ns and the ways of them, 
Donal was yet a little surprised that there was nobody to re- 
ceive him. He approached the fire, and sat down to warm 
himself, taking care not to set his hobnailed shoes on the 
grandeur of the little hearthrug. A few moments and he was 
startled by a slight noise, as of suppressed laughter. He 
jumped up. One of the curtains of his bed was strangely 
agitated. Out leaped Gibbie from behind it, and threw his 
arms about him. 


272 


SIR GIBBIE. 


“Eh, cratur I ye gae me sic a fleg ! said Donal. “But, 
losh ! they hae made a gentleman o' ye a ready ! " he added, 
holding him at arm's length, and regarding him with wonder 
and admiration. 

A notable change had indeed passed upon Gibbie, mere 
externals considered, in that fortnight. He was certainly 
not so picturesque as before, yet the alteration was entirely 
delightful to Donal. Perhaps he felt it gave a good hope for 
the future of his own person. Mrs. Sclater had had his hair 
cut ; his shirt was of the whitest of linen, his necktie of the 
richest of black silk, his clothes were of the newest cut and 
best possible fit, and his boots perfect : the result w^as alto- 
gether even to her satisfaction. In one thing only was she 
foiled : she could not get him to wear gloves. He had put 
on a pair, but found them so miserably uncomfortable that, 
in merry wrath, he pulled them oflf on the way home, and 
threw them — “ The best kid ! " exclaimed Mrs. Sclater — over 
the Pearl Bridge. Prudently fearful of over-straining her 
influence, she yielded for the present, and let him go with- 
out. 

Mr. Sclater also had hitherto excercised prudence in his de- 
mands, upon Gibbie — not that he desired anything less than 
unlimited authority with him, but, knowing it would be hard 
to enforce, he sought to establish it by a gradual tightening of 
the rein, a slow encroachment of law upon the realms of dis- 
ordered license. He had never yet refused to do anything he 
required of him, had executed entirely the tasks he set him, 
was more than respectful, and always ready ; yet somehow 
Mr. Sclater could never feel that the lad was exactly obeying 
him. He thought it over, but could not understand it, and 
did not like it, for he was fond of authority. Gibbie in fact 
did whatever was required of him from his own delight in 
met ting the wish expressed, not from any sense of duty or of 
obligation to obedience. The minister had no perception of 
what the boy was, and but a very small capacity for appre- 
ciating what was best in him, and had a foreboding suspicion 
that the time would come when they would differ. 

He had not told him that he was going to meet the coach, 
but Gibbie was glad to learn from Mrs. Sclater that such was 
his intention, for he preferred meeting Donal at his lodging. 
He had reconized the place at once from tne minister's 
mention of it to his wife, having known the shop and its 
owner since ever he could remember himself. He loitered 
near until he saw Donal arrive, then crept after him and the 


donal’s lodging. 


273 

porter up the stair, and when Donal sat down by the fire, got 
into the room and behind the curtain. 

The boys had then a jolly time of it. They made their tea, 
for which everything was present, and ate as boys know how, 
Donal enjoying the rarity of the white bread of the city, 
Cibbie, who had not tasted oatmeal since he came, devouring 

mother’s cakes.'" When they had done, Gibbie, who had 
learned much since he came, looked about the room till he 
found a bell-rope, and pulled it, whereupon the oddest-look- 
ing old woman, not a hair altered from what Gibbie remem- 
bered her, entered, and, with friendly chatter, proceeded to 
remove the tray. Suddenly something arrested her, and she 
began to regard Gibbie with anxious looks ; in a moment she 
was sure of him, and a torrent of exclamations and reminis- 
cences and appeals followed, which lasted, the two lads now 
laughing, now all but crying, for nearly an hour, while, all 
the time, the old woman kept doing and undoing about the 
hearth and the tea table. Donal asked many questions about 
his friend, and she answered freely, except as often as one ap- 
proached his family, \vhen she would fall silent, and bustle 
about as if she had not heard. Then Gibbie would look 
thoughtful and strange, and a little sad, and a far-away gaze 
would come into his eyes, as if he were searching for his father 
in the other world. 

When the good woman at length left them, they uncorded 
Donal’s kist, discovered the cause of its portentous weight, 
took out everything, put the provisions in a cupboard, arranged 
the few books, and then sat down by the fire for “ a read” 
together. 

The hours slipped away ; it was night ; and still they sat 
and read. It must have been after ten o’clock when they 
heard footsteps coming through the adjoining room ; the 
door opened swiftly ; in walked Mr. Sclater, and closed it 
behind him. His look was angry — severe enough for boys 
caught card-playing, or drinking, or reading something that 
was not divinity on a Sunday. Gibbie had absented himself 
without permission, had stayed away for hours, had not re- 
turned even when the hour of worship arrived ; and these 
were sins against the respectability of his house which no 
minister like Mr. Sclater could pass by. It mattered 
nothing what they were doing ! it was all one when it got to 
midnight ! then it became revelling, and was sinful and 
dangerous, vulgar and ungentlemanly, giving the worst 
possible example to those beneath them ! What could their 
landlady think.? — the very first night.? — and a lodger whom he 


274 


SIR GIBBIE. 


had recommended ? Such was the sort of thing with which 
INIr. Sclater overwhelmed the two boys. Donal would have 
pleaded in justification, or at least excuse, but he silenced him 
peremptorily. I suspect there had been some difference be- 
tween ]\Irs. Sclater and him just before he left ; how other- 
wise could he have so entirely forgotten his wise resolves 
anent Gibbie's gradual subjugation ? 

When first he entered, Gibbie rose with his usual smile of 
greeting, and got him a chair. But he waved aside the at- 
tention with indignant indifference, and went on with his 
foolish reproof — unworthy of record except for Gibbie’s 
following behavior. Beaten down by the suddenness of the 
storm, Donal had never risen from his chair, but sat glowering 
into the fire. He was annoyed, vexed, half-ashamed ; with 
that readiness of the poetic nature to fit itself to any position, 
especially one suggested by an unjust judgment, he felt, with 
the worthy parson thus storming at him, almost as if guilty in 
everything laid to their joint charge. Gibbie on his feet 
looked the minister straight in the face. His smile of welcome, 
which had suddenly mingled itself with bewilderment, 
gradually faded into one of concern, then of pity, and by de- 
grees died away altogether, leaving in its place a look of ques- 
tion. IMore and more settled his countenance grew, while all 
the time he never took his eyes off Mr. Sclater's until its ex- 
pression at length was that of pitiful unconsious reproof, 
mingled with sympathatic shame. lie had never met anything 
like this before. Nothing low like this — for all injustice, 
and especially all that sort of thing which Janet called 
“dingin' the motes wi' the beam," is eternally low — had 
Gibbie seen in the holy temple of Glashgar ! He had no way 
of understanding or interpreting it save by calling to his aid 
the sad knowledge of evil, gathered in his earliest years. 
Except in the laird and I'ergus and the gamekeeper, he had 
not, since fleeing from Lucky Croale's houff, seen a trace oi 
unreasonable anger in any one he knew. Robert or Janet 
had never scolded him. He might go and come as he 
pleased. The night was sacred as the day in that dear house. 
His father, even when most overcome by the wicked thing, 
had never scolded him ! 

The boys remaining absolutely silent, the minister had it 
all his own way. But before he had begun to draw to a 
close, across the blinding mists ofhis fog-breeding wrath he 
began to be aware of the shining of two heavenly lights, the 
eyes, namely, of the dumb boy fixed upon him. They jarred 
him a little in his onward course ; they shook him as if with 


donal’s lodging. 


275 


a doubt, the feeling undefined slowly grew to a notion, first 
obscure then plain : they were eyes of reproof that were fast- 
ened upon his ! At the first suspicion, his anger flared up 
more fierce than ever ; but it was a flare of a doomed flame ; 
slowly the rebuke told, was telling; the self-satisfied in-the-right- 
ness — a very difterent thing from righteousness — of the man 
was sinking before the innocent diiference of the boy ; he 
began to feel awkward, he hesitated, he ceased ; for the moment 
Gibbie unconsciously, had conquered ; without knowing it 
he was the superior of the two, and Mr. Sclater had begun to 
learn that he could never exercise authority over him. But 
the wordly-wise man will not seem to be defeated even when 
he knows he is. If he do give in, he will make it look as if it 
came of the proper motion of his own goodness. After a 
slight pause, the minister spoke again, but with the changed 
tone of one who has had an apology made to him, whose 
anger is appeased, and who therefore acts the Neptune over 
the billows of his own sea. That was the way he would slide 
out of it. 

“Donal Grant,” he said, “you had better goto bed at 
once, and get fit for your work to-morrow. I will go with 
you to call upon the principal. Take care you are not out of 
the way when I come for you. Get your cap. Sir Gilbert and 
come. Mrs. Sclater was already very uneasy about you when 
I left her.” 

Gibbie took from his pocket the little ivory tablets Mrs. 
Sclater had given him, wrote the following words, and 
handed them to the minister : 

“ Dear sir, I am going to slepe this night with Donal. The 
bed is bigg enuf for 2. Good night sir.” 

For a moment the minister’s wrath seethed again. Like a 
volcano, however, that has sent out a puff of steam, but holds 
back its lava, he thought better of it ; here was a chance of 
retiring with grace — in well-conducted retreat, instead of 
headlong rout. 

“Then be sure you are at home by lesson-time,” he said. 
“Donal can come with you. Good night. Mind you don’t 
keep each other awake.” 

Donal said “Good night, sir,” and Gibbie gave him a 
serious and respectful nod. He left the room, and the boys 
turned and looked at each other. Donal’s countenance ex- 
pressed an indignant sense of wrong, but Gibbie’s revealed a 
more profound concern. He stood motionless, intent on the 
•receding steps of the minister: The moment the sound of 
.them ceased, he darted soundless after him, Don^- who 


SIR GIBBIE. 


276 

from ]\Ir. Sclater’s reply had understood what Gibbie had 
written, was astonished, and starting to his feet followed him. 
By the time he reached the door, Gibbie was past the second 
lamp, his shadow describing a huge half-circle around him, 
as he stole from lamp to lamp after the minister, keeping 
always a lamp-post still between. When the minister turned 
a corner, Gibbie made a soundless dart to it and peeped 
round, lingered a moment and looking, then followed again. 
On and on went INIr. Sclater, and on and on went Gibbie, 
careful constantly not to be seen by him ; and on and on 
went Donal careful to he seen of neither. They went a 
long way as he thought, for the country boy distance 
between houses seemed much greater than between dykes or 
hedges. At last the minister went up the steps of a handsome 
house took a key from his pocket, and opened the door. 
From some impulse or other as he stepped in, he turned 
sharp around and saw Gibbie. 

“Come in" he said, in aloud authoritative tone, probably 
taking the boy’s appearance for the effect of repentence and a 
desire to return to his own bed. 

Gibbie lifted his cap, and walked quietly on towards the 
other end of Daur-street. Donal dared not follow, for Mr. 
Sclater stood between, looking out. Presently however the 
door shut with a great bang, and Donal was after Gibbie like 
a hound. But Gibbie had turned a corner, and was gone from 
his sight. Donal turned a corner too, but it was a wrong 
corner. Concluding that Gibbie had turned another corner 
ahead of him, he ran on and on, in the vanishing hope of 
catching sight of him again ; but he was soon satisfied he 
had lost him, — nor him only, but himself as well for he had 
not the smallest idea how to return, even as far as the minis- 
ter’s house. It rendered the matter considerably worse that, 
having never heard the name of the street where he lodged 
but once— when the minister gave direction to the porter, he 
had utterly forgotten it. So there he was, out in the night, 
astray in the streets of a city of so many tens of thousands, in 
which he had never till that day set foot — never before 
having been in any larger abode of men than scattered village 
of thatched roofs. But he was not tired, and as long as a man 
is not tired, he can do well, even in pain. But a city is a 
dreary place at night, even to one who knows his way in it 
— much drearier to one lost — in some respects drearier than 
a heath — except there be old mine-shafts in it. 

“It’s as gien a’ the birds o' a country had creepit intil their 
bit eggs again, an' the day was left bare o' sang 1 " said the 


DONALS LODGING. 


2'/ 7 

poet to himself as he walked. Night amongst houses was a 
new thing to him. Night on the hillsides and in the fields he 
knew well ; but this was like a place of tombs — what else, 
when all were dead for the night ? The night is the world’s 
graveyard, and the cities are its catacombs. He repeated to 
himself all his own few ballads, then repeated them aloud as 
he walked indulging the fancy that he had a long audience on 
each side of him ; but he dropped into silence the moment 
any night-wanderer appeared. Presently he found himselt on 
the shore of the river, and tried to get to the edge of the 
water ; but it was low tide, the lamps did not throw much 
light so far, the moon was clouded, he got among logs and 
mud, and regained the street bemired, and beginning to feel 
weary. He was saying to himself what ever was he to do all 
night long, when round a corner a little way off came a 
woman. It was no use asking counsel of her, however, or 
anyone, he thought, so long as he did not know even the 
name or the street he wanted — a street which as he walked 
along it had seemed interminable. The woman drew near. 
She was rather tall, erect in the back, but bowed in the 
shoulders, with fierce black eyes, which were all that he could 
see of her face, for she had a little tartan shawl over her head, 
which she hel^, together with one hand, while in the other she 
carried a basket. But those eyes were enough to make him 
fancy he must have seen her before. They were just passing 
each other, under a lamp, when she looked hard at him, and 
stopped. 

“Man,” she said, “ I hae set e’en upo' j/our face afore ! ” 
“Gien that be the case,” answered Donal, “ye set e’en 
upo’ ’t again. ” 

“ 'Whaur come ye frae? ” she asked. 

“That’s what I wad fain speir mysel’,” he replied. “But, 
wuman,” he went on, “ I fancy I hae set e’en upo’ your e’en 
afore — I canna wael say for yer face. Whaur come^^ frae ? ” 
“Ken ye a place they ca’ — Daurside?” she rejoined. 
“Daurside’sa gey lang place,” answered Donal; “an' 
this maun be aboot the tae en’ o’ ’t. I’m thinkin’,” 

“Ye’re no far wrang there,” she returned ; an’ ye hae a 
gey gleg tongue i’ yer heid for a laad frae Daurside,” 

“I never h’ard ’at tongues war cuttit shorter there por 
Kher gaits,” said Donal ; “ but I didna mean ye ony Qffence.’* 
“There’s nane fa’en, nor like to be,” answered ' the 
woman. “Ken ye a place they ca’ Mains o’ Glashruach ? ” 
As she spoke she let go her shawl, and it opened from her 
face like two curtains. 


278 


SIR GIBBIF. 


“Lord! it’s the witch-wife!” cried Donal, retreating a 
pace in his astonishment. 

The woman burst into a great laugh, a hard, unmusical, 
but not unmirthful laugh. 

“Ay!” she said, “was that hoo the fowk wad hae’t o’ 
me ? ” “It wasna muckle won’er, efter ye cam wydin’ throu’ 
watter yairds deep, an’ syne gaed doon the spate on a 
bran’er. ” 

“ Weel, it was the maddest thing!” she returned, with 
another laugh which stopped abruptly. “ I wadna dee the 
like again to save my life. But the Michty cairried me throu’. 
An’ hoo’s wee Sir Gibbie ? — Come in — I dinna ken yer name 
— but we’re jist at the door o’ my bit garret. Come quaiet 
up the stair, an’ tell me a’ aboot it.” 

“ Weel, I wadna be sorry to rist a bit, for I hae tint mysel 
a’thegither, an’ I’m some tiret,” answered Donal. “ I but left 
the Mains thestreen.” 

“Come in an’ walcome ; an whan ye’re ristit, an’ I’m rid 
o’ my basket, I’ll sune pit ye i’ the gait o’ hame.” 

Donal was too tired, and too glad to be once more in the 
company of a human being, to pursue further explanation at 
present. He followed her, as quietly as he could, up the 
dark stair. When she struck a light, he saw a little garret- 
room — better than decently furnished, it seemed to the youth 
from the hills, though his mother would have thought it far 
from tidy. The moment the woman got a candle lighted, 
she went to a cupboard, and brought thence a bottle and a 
glass. When Donal declined the whisky she poured out, she 
seemed disappointed, and setting down the glass, let it stand. 

But when she had seated herself, and begun to relate her 
adventures in quest of Gibbie, she drew it towards her, and 
sipped as she talked. Some day she would tell him, she said, 
the whole story of her voyage on the brander, which would 
make him laugh ; but it made her laugh, even now, when it 
came back to her in her bed at night, though she was far 
enough from laughing at the time. Then she told him a 
great deal about Gibbie and his father. 

“ An’ noo, ” remarked Donal, “he’ll be thinkin’ ’t a’ ower 
again, as he rins aboot the toon this verra meenute, luikin’ 
for me !” 

‘ ‘ Dinna ye trible yersel’ aboot him, ” said the woman. ‘ ‘He 
kens the toon as weeks ony rottan kens the drains o’ ’t. But 
whaur div ye pit up? she added, “for its time dacent fowk 
was gauin’ to their beds.” 


dgnal’s lodging. 


279 

Donal explained that he knew neither the name of the street 
nor of the people where he was lodging. 

“Tell me this or that — something — onything aboot the 
hoose or tlie fowk, or what they’re like, an’ it may be ’at I'll 
ken them,” she said. 

But scarcely had he begun his descripticn of the house when 
she cried. 

“Hoot, man ! it’s at Lucky Murkinson’s ye are, i’ the 
Wuddiehill. Come awa’, an’ I s’ tak ye hame in a jiffey.” 

So saying, she rose, took the candle, showed him down the 
stair, and followed. 

•It was past midnight, and the moon was down, but the 
streetlamps were not yet extinguished, and they walked along 
without anything to interrupt their conversation — chiefly about 
Sir Gibbie and Sir George. But perhaps if Donal had known 
the cause of Gibbie’s escape from the city, and that the dread 
thing had taken place in this woman’s house, he would not 
have walked qi^ite so close to her. 

Poor Mistress Croale, however, had been nowise to blame 
for that, and the shock it gave her had even done something 
to check the rate of her downhill progress. It let her see, 
with a lightning flash from the pit, how wide the rent now 
yawned between her and her former respectability. She con- 
tinued, as we know, to drink whiskey, and was not unfre- 
quently overcome by it ; but in her following life as peddler, 
she measured her madness more ; and, much in the open air 
and walking a great deal, with a basket sometimes heavy, her 
indulgence did her less physical harm ; her temper recovered 
a little, she regained a portion of her self-command ; and at 
the close of those years of wandering, she was less of a ruin, 
both mentally and spiritually, than at their commencement. 

When she received her hundred pounds for the finding of 
Sir Gibbie, she rented a little shop in the gallery of the market, 
where she sold such things as she had carried about the country 
adding to her stock, upon the likelihood of demand, without 
respect to unity either conventional or real, in the character 
of the wares she associated. The interest and respectability 
of this new start in life, made a little fresh opposition to the 
inroads of her besetting sin ; so that now she did not consume 
as much whiskey in three days as she did in one when she 
had her houff on the shore. Some people seem to have been 
drinking all their lives, of necessity getting more and more 
into the power of the enemy, but without succumbing at a 
rapid rate, having even their times of uplifting and betterment. 
Mistress Croale’s complexign *was a little clearer ; her eyes 


280 


SIR GIBBIE. 


were less fierce ; her expression was more composed ; some 
of the women who like her had shops in the market, had 
grown a little friendly with her; and, which was of more valuable 
significance, she had come to be not a little regarded by the 
poor women of the lower parts behind the market, who were 
in the way of dealing with her. For the moment a customer 
of this class, and she had but few of any other, appeared at 
her shop, or covered stall, rather, she seemed in spirit to go 
outside the counter and buy with her, giving her the best 
counsel she had, now advising the cheaper, now dearer of two 
articles ; while now and then one could tell of having been 
sent by her to another shop, where, in the particular case, she 
could do better. A love of affairs, no doubt, bore a part in 
this peculiarity, but there is all the difference between the two 
w'ays of embodying activity — to one's own advantage only, 
and — to the advantage of one’s neighbor as well. For my 
part, if I knew a woman behaved to her neighbors as Mistress 
Croale did to hers, were she the worst of drunkards in be- 
tween, I could not help both respecting and loving her. Alas 
that such virtue is so portentously scarce ! There are so 
many that are sober for one that is honest ! Deep are the 
depths of social degradation to which the clean, purifying 
light yet reaches, and lofty are the heights of social honor 
where yet the light is nothing but darkness. Any thoughtful 
person who knew Mistress Croale’s history, would have feared 
much for her, and hoped a little : her so-called fate was still 
undecided. In the mean time she made a living, did not get 
into debt, spent an inordinate portion of her profits in drink, 
but had regained and was keeping up a kind and measure of 
respectability. 

Before they reached the V/iddiehill, Donal, with the open 
heart of the poet, was full of friendliness to her, and rejoiced 
in the mischance that had led him to make her acquaintance. 

“ Ye ken, of coorse,” he happened to say, “’at Gibbie’s 
wi’ Maister Sclater 

“ Weel eneuch,” she answered. “I hae seen him tee ; but 
he’s gran’ gentleman grown, an’ I wadna like to be affrontit 
layin’ claim till’s acquaintance, — walcome as he ance was to 
my hoose !” 

. . She had more reason for the doubt and hesitation she thus 
expressed than Donal knew. But his answer was none the 
less the true one as regarded his friend. 

“Ye little, ken Gibbie,” he said, “gien ye. think that gait o’ 
’im ! Gang ye to the minister’s door and speir for ’im I 
He’ll be doon the stair like a shot. — But ’deed maybe he’s 


donal’s lodging. 


281 


come back, an’ ’s i’ my chaumer the noo 1 Ye’ll come up the 
stair an’ see ? ” 

“Na, i wunna dee that,” said Mistress Croale. who did 
not wish to face Mistress Murkison, well known to her in the 
days of her comparative prosperity. 

She pointed out the door to him, but herself stood on the 
other side of the way till she saw it opened by her old friend 
in her night-cap, and heard her make jubilee over his 
return. 

Gibbie had come home and gone out again to look for him 
she said. 

“Weel” remarked Donal, “ there wad be sma’ guid in my 
gaein’ to luik for him. It wad be but the sheep gaein’ to 
luik for the shepherd. ” 

‘‘Ye’re richt there,” said his landlady. “A tint bairn sud 
aye sit doon an’ sit still.” 

“ Weel, ye gang till yer bed, mem,” returned Donal. 
“ Lat me see hoo yer door works, an’ I’ll lat him in whan he 
comes. ” 

Gibbie came within an hour, and all was well. They 
made their communication, of which Donal’s was far the 
more interesting, had their laugh over the affair, and went to 
bed. 


CHAPTER XLIII. 

THE minister’s DEFEAT. 

The minister’s WTath, when he found he had been followed 
home by Gibbie who yet would not enter the house, instantly 
rose in redoubled strength. He was ashamed to report the 
affair to Mrs. Sclater just as it had passed. He was but a 
married old bachelor, and fancied he must keep up his dig- 
nity in the eyes of his wife, not having yet learned that, if a 
man be true, his friends and lovers will see to his dignity. So 
his anger went on smouldering all night long, and all 
through his sleep, without a touch of cool assuagement, and 
in the morning he rose with his temper very feverish. Dur- 
ing breakfast he was gloomy, but would confess to no in- 
ward annoyance. What added to his unrest was, that, 
although he felt insulted, he did not know what precisely the 


252 


SIR GIBBIE. 


nature of the insult was. Even in his wrath he could scarcely 
set down Gibbie's following of him to a glorying mockery of 
his defeat. Doubtless, for a man accustomed to deal with 
affairs, to rule over a parish — for one who generally had his 
way in the kirk-session, and to whom his wife show^ed 
becoming respect, it was scarcely fitting that the rude behavior 
of an ignorant country dummy should affect him so much: 
he ought to have been above such injury. But the lad whom 
he so regarded, had first wdth his mere looks lowered him in 
his own eyes, then showed himself beyond the reach of his 
reproof by calmly refusing to obey him, and then become 
unintelligible by following him like a creature over whom 
surveillance was needful ! The more he thought of this last 
the more inexplicable it seemed to become, except on the 
notion of deliberate insult. And the worst was, that hence- 
forth he could expect to have no power at all over the boy ! 
If it was like this already, , how would it be in the time to 
come.? If, on the other hand, he were to re-establish his 
authority at the ccst of making the boy hate him, then, the 
moment he was of age, his behavior would be that of a liber- 
ated enemy : he would go straight to the dogs, and his money 
with him ! — The man of influence and scheme did well to be 
annoyed. 

Gibbie made his appearance at ten o’clock, and went 
straight to the study, where at that hour the minister was 
always wailing him. He entered with his own smile, bend- 
ing his head in morning salutation. The minister said “Good 
morning, ” but gruffly, and without raising his eyes from the 
last publication of the Spalding Club. Gibbie seated himself 
in his usual place, arranged his book and slate, and was ready 
to commence — when the minister, having now summoned 
resolution, lifted his head, fixed his eyes on him, and said 
sternly — 

“ Sir Gilbert, what was your meaning in following me, 
after refusing to accompany me ? ” 

Gibbie’s face flushed. Mr. Sclater believed he saw him 
for the first time ashamed of himself ; his hope rose ; his 
courage grew ; he augured victory and a re-established throne: 
he gathered himself up in dignity, prepared to overwhelm 
him. But Gibbie showed no hesitation ; he took his slate 
instantly, found his pencil, wrote, and handed the slate to 
the minister. There stood these word§ : 

“I thought you was drunk.” 

Mr. Sclater started to his. feet, the hand which held the 
.offending document uplifted, his eyes flaming, his cheeks white 


THE minister’s DEFEAT. 


283 

with passion, and with the flat of the slate came down a great 
blow on the top of Gibbie’s head. Happily the latter was the 
harder of the two, and the former broke, flying mostly out of 
the frame. It took Gibbie terribly by surprise. Half-stunned, 
he started to his feet, and for one moment the wild beast 
which was in him, as it is in everybody, rushed to the front 
of its cage. It would have gone ill then with the minister, 
had not as sudden a change followed ; the very same instant, 
it was as if an invisible veil, woven of gracious air and odor 
and dew, had decended upon him ; the flame of his wrath 
went out, quenched utterly ; a smile of benignest compassion 
overspread his countenance ; in his offender he saw only a 
brother. But Mr. Sclater saw no brother before him, for 
when Gibbie rose he drew back to better his position, and so 
doing made it an awkward one indeed. For it happened oc- 
casionally that, the study being a warm room, Mrs. Sclater, 
on a winter evening, sat there with her husband, whence it 
came that on the floor squatted a low foot-stool, subject to 
not unfrequent clerical imprecation : when he stepped back, 
he trod on the edge of it, stumbled, and fell. Gibbie darted 
forward. A part of the minister s body rested upon the stool, 
and its elevation, made the first movement necessary to rising 
rather difficult, so that he could not at once get off his 
back. 

What followed was the strangest act for a Scotch boy, but 
it must be kept in mind how limited were his means of ex- 
pression. lie jumped over the prostrate minister, who the 
next moment seeing his face bent over him from behind, and 
seized, like the gamekeeper, with suspicion born of his vio- 
lence, raised his hands to defend himself, and made a blow at 
him. Gibbie avoided it, laid hold of his arms inside each 
elbow, clamped them to the floor, kissed him on forehead 
and cheek, and began to help him up like a child. 

Having regained his legs, the minister stood for a moment, 
confused and half-blinded. The first thing he saw was a 
drop of blood stealing down Gibbie’s forehead. He was 
shocked at what he had done. In truth he had been frightfully 
provoked, but it was not for a clergyman so to avenge an in- 
sult, and as mere chastisement it was brutal. What would Mrs. 
Sclater say to it .? The rascal was sure to make his complaint 
to her ! And there too was his friend, the herd-lad, in the 
drawing-room with her ! 

“Go wash your face,” he said, “and come back again 
directly.” 

Gibbie put his hand tc his face, and feeling something wet, 


284 


SIR GIBBIE. 


looked, and burst into a merry laugh. 

“ I am sorry I have hurt you,” said the minister, not a 
little relieved at the sound ; “ but how dared you write such 
a — such an insolence.? A clergyman never gets drunk.” 

Gibbie picked up the frame which the minister had dropped 
in his fall : a piece of the slate was still sticking in one side, 
and he wrote upon it : 

I will kno better the next time. I thout it was alwais whiskey. 
that made people like that. I beg your pardon, sir. 

He handed him the fragment, ran to his own room, re-, 
turned presently, looking all right, and when Mr. Sclater 
would have attended to his wound, would not let him even 
look at it, laughing at the idea. Still further relieved to find 
there was nothing to attract observation to the injury, and yet 
more ashamed of himself, the minister made haste to the 
refuge of their work ; but it did not require the gleam of the 
paper substituted for the slate, to keep him that morning in 
remembrance of what he had done ; indeed it hovered about 
him long after the gray of the new slate had passed into a 
dark blue. 

From that time, after luncheon, which followed immedi- 
ately upon lessons, Gibbie went and came as he pleased. 
Mrs. Sclater begged he would never be out after ten o'clock 
without having let them know that he meant to stay all night 
with his friend : not once did he neglect this request, and 
they soon came to have perfect confidence not only in any 
individual promise he might make, but in his general punc- 
tuality. Mrs . Sclater never came to know anything of his 
wounded head, and it gave the minister a sharp sting of com- 
punction, as well as increased his sense of moral inferioritv, 
when he saw that for a fortnight or so he never took his 
favorite place at her feet, evidently that she should not look 
down on his head. 

The same evening they had friends to dinner. Already 
Gibbie was so far civilized, as they called it, that he might 
have sat at any dinning-table without attracting the least "at- 
tention, but that evening he attracted a great deal. For he 
could scarcely eat his own dinner for watching the needs of 
those at the table with him, ready to spring from his chair and 
supply the least lack. This behavior naturally harassed the 
hostess, and at last, upon one of those occasions, the servants 
happening to be out of the room, she called him to her side, 
and said : 

“You were quite right to do that now, Gilbert, but please 
never do such a thing when the servants are in the room. It 


THE minister’s DEFEAT. 


285 


confuses them, and makes us all uncomfortable.” 

Gibbie heard with obedient ear, but took the words as con- 
taining express permission to wait upon the company in the 
absence of other ministration. When therefore the servants 
finally disappeared, as was the custom there in small house- 
holds, immediately after placing the dessert, Gibbie got up, 
and, much to the amusement of the guests, waited on them as 
quite a matter of course. But they would have wondered 
could they have looked into the heart of the boy, and beheld 
the spirit in which the thing was done, the soil in which was 
hid the root of the service ; for to him the whole thing was 
sacred as an altar-rite to the priest who ministers. Round 
and round the table, deft and noiseless, he went, altogether 
aware of the pleasure of the thing, not at all of its oddity — 
which, however, had he understood it perfectly, he would not 
in the least have minded. 

All this may, both in Gibbie and the narrative, seem tri- 
fling, but I more than doubt whether, until our small services 
are sweet with divine affection, our great ones, if such we are 
capable of, will ever have the true Christian flavor about 
them. And then such eagerness to pounce upon every 
smallest opportunity of doing the will of the Master, could 
not fail to further proficiency in the service throughout. 

Presently the ladies rose, and when they had left the room, 
the host asked Gibbie to ring the bell. He obeyed with 
alacrity, and a servant appeared. She placed the utensils for 
making and drinking toddy, after Scotch custom, upon the 
table. A shadow fell upon the soul of Gibbie : for the first 
time since he ran from the city, he saw the well-known ap- 
pointments of midnight orgy associated in his mind with all 
the horrors from which he had fled. The memory of old 
nights in the street, as he watched for his father, and then 
helped him home : of his father’s last prayer, drinking and 
imploring ; of his white, motionless face the next morning ; 
of the row at Lucky Croale’s, and poor black Sambo’s gaping 
throat — all these terrible things came back upon him, as he 
stood staring at the tumblers and the wine glasses and the 
steaming kettle. 

“What is the girl thinking of!” exclaimed the minister, 
who had been talking to his next neighbor, when he heard 
the door close behind the servant. “She has actually for- 
gotten the whiskey 1 — Sir Gilbert,” he went on, with a glance 
at the boy, “as you are so good, will you oblige me by 
bringing the bottle from the sideboard ? ” 

Gibbie started at the sound of his name, but did not move 


286 


SIR GIBBIE. 


from the place. After a moment, the minister, who had re- 
sumed the conversation, thinking he had not heard him, 
looked up. There, between the foot of the table and the 
sideboard, stood Gibbie as if fixed to the floor gazing out of 
his blue eyes at the minister— those eyes filmy with gathering 
tears, the smile utterly faded from his countenance. Would 
the Master have drunk out of that bottle .? he was thinking 
with himself. Imagining some chance remark had hurt the 
boy’s pride, and not altogether sorry — it gave hope of the 
gentleman he wanted to make him — Mr. Sclater spoke again : 

“ It’s just behind you. Sir Gilbert — the whiskey bottle — 
that purple one with the silver top.” 

Gibbie never moved, but his eyes began to run over. A 
fearful remembrance of the blow he had given him on the 
head rushed back on Mr. Sclater : could it be the conse- 
quence of that ? Was the boy paralyzed ? He was on the 
point of hurrying to him, but restrained himself, and rising 
with deliberation, approached the sideboard. A nearer sight 
of the boy’s face reassured him. 

“ I beg your pardon, Sir Gilbert,” he said ; “I thought 
you would not mind waiting on us as well as on the ladies. 
It is your own fault, you know. There,” he added, pointing 
to the table ; “take your place, and have a little toddy. It 
won’t hurt you.” 

The eyes of all the guests were by this time fixed on Gib- 
bie. What could be the matter with the curious creature ? 
they wondered. His gentle merriment and quiet delight in 
waiting upon them, had given a pleasant concussion to the 
spirits of the party, which had at first threatened to be rather 
a stiff and dull one ; and there now was the boy all at once 
looking as if he had received a blow, or some cutting insult 
which he did not know how to resent ! 

Between the agony of refusing to serve and the impossi- 
bility of putting his hand to unclean ininistration, Gibbie 
had stood as if spell-bound. He would have thought little 
of such horrors in Lucky Croale’s houff, but the sight of the 
things here terrified him. He felt as a Corinthian Christian 
must, catching a sight of^one of the elders of the church 
feasting in a temple. But the last words of the minister 
broke the painful charm. He burst into tears, and darting 
from the room, not a little to his guardian’s relief, hurried to 
his own. 

The guests stared bewildered. 

“ He’ll be gone to the ladies,” said their host. “He’s an 
odd creature. Mrs. Sclater understands him better than I do. 


THE MINISTERS DEFEAT, 


287 


He's more at home with her.'' 

Therewith he proceeded to tell them his history, and 
whence the interest he had in him, not bringing down his 
narrative beyond the afternoon of the preceding day. 

The next morning, Mrs. Sclater had a talk with him con- 
cerning his whim of waiting at table, telling him he must not 
do so again ; it was not the custom for gentlemen to do the 
things that servants were paid to do ; it was not fair to the 
servants, and so on — happening to end with an utterance of 
mild wonder at his fancy for such a peculiarity. This excla- 
mation Gibbie took for a question, or at least the expression 
of a desire to understand the reason of the thing. He went 
to a side-table, and having stood there a moment or two, re- 
turned with a New Testament, in which he pointed out the 
words, “But’ I am among you as he that serveth.” Giving 
her just time to read them, he took the book again, and in 
addition presented the words, “The disciple is not above his 
Master, but every one that is perfect shall be as his Master." 

Mrs. Sclater was as much put out as if he had been guilty 
of another and worse indiscretion. , The idea of anybody 
ordering his common doings, not to say his oddities, by prin- 
ciples drawn from a source far too sacred to be practically 
regarded was too preposterous to have ever become even a 
notion to her. Henceforth, however, it was a mote to trou- 
ble her mind's eye, a mote she did not get rid of until it be- 
gan to turn to a glimmer of light. 1 need hardly add that 
Gibbie waited at her dinner-table no more. 


CHAPTER XLIV. 

THE SINNER. 

No man can order his life, for it comes flowing over him 
from behind. But if it lay before us, and we could watch its 
current approaching from a long distance, what could we do 
with it before it had reached the now? In like wise a man 
thinks foolishly who imagines he could have done this and 
that with his own character and developement, if he had 
but known this and that in time. Were he as good as he 
think himself wise he could but at best have produced a fine 
cameo in very low relief : with a work in the round, which 
he is meant to be, he could have done nothing. The once 
secret of life and developement, is not to devise and plan. 


288 


SIR GIBBIE. 


but to fall in with the forces at work — to do every moment's 
duty aright — that being the part in the process allotted to us ; 
and let come — not what will, for there is no such thing — 
but what the eternal Thought wills for each of us, has in- 
tended in each of us from the first. If men would but be- 
lieve that they are in process of creation, and consent to be 
made — let the maker handle them as the potter his clay, 
yielding themselves in respondent motion and submissive 
hopeful action with the turning of his wheel, they would ere 
long find themselves able to welcome every pressure of that 
hand upon them, even when it w'as felt in pain, and some- 
times not only to believe but to recognize the divine end in 
view, the bringing of a son into glory ; whereas behaving like 
children who struggle and seream while their mother washes 
and dresses them, they find they have to be washed and 
dressed, notwithstanding, and with the more discomfort ; they 
may even have to find themselves set half naked and but half 
dried in a corner, to come to their right minds, and ask to be 
finished. 

At this time neither Gibbie nor Donal strove against his 
creation — what was the wise of this world call their fate. In 
truth Gibbie never did ; and for Donal, the process was at 
present in a stage much too agreeable to rouse any inclination 
to resist. He enjoyed his new phase of life immensely. If 
he did not distinguish himself as a scholar, it was not be- 
cause he neglected his work, but because he was at the same 
time doing that by which alone the water could ever rise in 
the well he was digging : he was himself growing. Far too 
eager after knowledge to indulge in emulation, he gained no 
prizes : what had he to do with how much or how little those 
around him could eat as compared with himself? No work 
noble or lastingly good can come of emulation any more than 
of greed : I think the motives are spiritually the same. To 
excite it is worthy only of the commonplace vulgar school- 
master, whose ambition is to show what fine scholars he can 
turn out, that he may get the more pupils. Emulation is the 
devil-shadow of aspiration. The set of the current-in the 
schools is at present towards a boundless swamp, but the wise 
among the scholars see it, and wisdom is the tortoise which 
shall win the race. In the mean time how many, with the 
legs and brain of the hare, will think they are gaining it, 
while they are losing things whose loss will make any prize 
unprized ! The result of Donal’s work appeared but very 
partially in his examinations, which were honest and honor- 
able to him ; it was hidden in his thoughts, his , aspirations. 


THE SINNER. 


289 


his growth, and his verse — all which maybe seen should I one 
day tell Donals story. For Gibbie, the minister had not been 
long teaching him, before he began to desire to make a 
scholar of him. Partly from being compelled to spend some 
labor upon it, the boy was gradually developing an unusal 
facility in expression. His teacher, compact of conventioni- 
ties, would have modelled the result upon some writer im- 
agined by him a master of style ; but the hurtful folly never 
got any hold of Gibbie ; all he ever cared about was to say 
what he meant, and avoid saying something else ; to know 
when he had not said what he meant, and to set the words 
right. It resulted that, when people did not understand 
what he meant, the cause generally lay with them, not with 
him ; and that, if they sometime smiled over his mode, it was 
because it lay closer to nature than theirs : they would have 
found it a hard task to improve it. 

What the fault with his organs of speech was, I cannot tell. 
His guardian lost no time in having them examined by a sur- 
geon in high repute, a professor of the university, but Dr. 
Skinner’s opinion put an end to question and hope together. 
Gibbie was not in the least disappointed. Pie had got on 
very well as yet without speech. It was not like sight or hear- 
ing. The only voice he could not hear was his own, and 
that was just the one he had neither occasion nor desire to 
hear. As to his friends, those who had known him the 
longest minded his dumbness the least. But the moment the 
defect was understood to be irreparable, Mrs. Sclater very 
wisely proceeded to learn the finger-speech ; and as she 
learned it, she taught it to Gibbie. 

As to his manners, which had been and continued to be 
her chief care, a certain disappointment followed her first 
rapid success : she never could get them to take on the case- 
hardening needful for what she counted the final polish. They 
always retained a certain simplicity which she called childish- 
ness. It came in fact of childlikeness, but the lady was not 
child enough to distinguish the difference — as great as that 
between the back and the front of a head. As, then, the 
minister found him incapable of forming a style, though time 
soon proved him capable of producing one, so the minister’s 
wife found him as incapable of putttng on company manners 
of any sort, as most people are incapable of putting them off 
— without being rude. It was disappointing to Mrs. Sclater, 
but Gibbie was just as content to appear what he was, as he 
was unwilling to remain what he was. Being dumb, she 


290 


SIR GIBBIE. 


would say to herself he would pass in any society ; but if he 
had had his speech, she never could have succeeded in mak- 
ing him a thorough gentleman : he would have always been 
saying the right thing in the wrong place. By the wrong 
place she meant the place where alone the thing could have 
any pertinence. In after years, however, Gibbie’s manners 
were, whether pronounced such or not, almost universally 
felt to be charming. But Gibbie knew nothing of his manners 
any more than of the style in which he wrote. 

One night on their way home from an evening party, the 
minister and his wife had a small difference, probably about 
something of as little real consequence to them as the know- 
lodge of it is to us, but by the time they reached home, they 
had got to the very summit of politeness with each other. 
Gibbie was in the drawing-room, as it happened, waiting their 
return. At the first sound of their voices, he knew, before a 
syllable reached him, that something was wrong. When they 
entered, they were too much engrossed in difference to heed 
his presence, and went on disputing — with the utmost ex- 
ternal propriety of words and demeanor, but with both in- 
jury and a sense of injury in every tone. Had they looked 
at Gibbie, I cannot think they would have been silenced ; 
but while neither of them dared turn eyes the way of him, 
neither had moral strength sufficient to check the words that 
rose to the lips. A discreet, socially wise boy would have 
left the room, but how could Gibbie abandon his friends to 
the fiery darts of the wicked one ! He ran to the side-table 
before mentioned. With a vague presentiment of what 
was coming, Mrs. Sclater, feeling rather than seeing him 
move across the room like a shadow, sat in dread expec- 
tation ; and presently her fear arrived, in the shape of a large 
New Testament, and a face of loving sadness, and keen dis- 
comfort, such as she had never before seen Gibbie wear. He 
held out the book to her, pointing with a finger to the words 
• — she could not refuse to let her eyes fall upon them — “ Have 
fealt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.” What 
Gibbie made of the salt, I do not know ; and whether he 
understood it or not was of little consequence, seeing he had 
it ; but the rest of the sentence he understood so well that 
he would fain have the writhing yoke-fellows think of it. 

The lady’s cheeks had been red before, but now they were 
redder. She rose, cast an angry look at the dumb prophet, a 
look which seemed to say ‘ ‘ How dare you suggest such a 
thing ? ” and left the room. 


THE SINNER. 


291 


‘‘What have you got there?” asked the minister, turning 
sharply upon him. Gibbie showed him the passage. 

“What hsLvejmi got to do with it?” he retorted, throwing 
the book on the table. “ Go to bed.” 

“A detestable prig !” you say, reader? — That is just what 
Mr. and Mrs. Sclater though him that night, but they never 
quarrelled again before him. In truth they were not given to 
quarrelling. Many couples who love each other more, quarrel 
more, and with less politeness. For Gibbie, he went to bed 
- — puzzled, and airaid there must be a beam in his eye. 

The very first time Donal and he could manage it, they set 
out together to find Mistress Croale. Donal thought he had 
nothing to do but walk straight from Mistress Murkison's 
door to hers, but, to his own annoyance, and the disappoint- 
ment of both, he soon found he had not a notion left as to 
how the place lay, except that it was by the river. So, as it 
already rather late, they put off their visit to another time, 
and took a walk instead. 

But Mistress Croale, haunted by old memories, most of 
them far from pleasant, grew more and more desirous of look- 
ing upon the object of perhaps the least disagreeable amongst 
them : she summoned resolution at last, went to the market 
a little better dressed than usual, and when business there was 
over, and she had shut up her little box of a shop, walked to 
Daur-street to the minister’s house. 

“ He’s aften eneuch crossed my door,” she said to herself, 
speaking of Mr. Sclater; “an’ though, weel I wat, the sicht 
o’ ’im never bodit me onything but ill, I never loot him ken 
he was less nor walcome ; an’ gien bein’ a minister gies the 
freedom o’ puirfowk’s hooses, itoucht intheniffer {exchange) 
to gie him the freedom o’ his.” 

Therewith encouraging herself, she walked up the steps and 
rang the bell. It was a cold, frosty winter evening, and as 
she stood waiting for the door to be opened, much the poor 
woman longed for her own fireside and a dram. Her period 
of expectation was drawn out not a little through the fact that 
the servant whose duty it was to answer the bell was just then 
waiting at table : because of a public engagement, the minis- 
ter had to dine earlier than usual. They were in the middle 
of their soup — cockie-leekie, nice and hot, when the maid 
informed her master that a woman was at the door, wanting 
to see Sir Gilbert. 

Gibbie looked up, put down his spoon, and was rising to 


292 


SIR GIBBIE. 


go, when the minister, laying his hand on hrs arm, pressed 
him gently back to his chair, and Gibbie yielded, waiting. 

“ What sort of a woman ?” he asked the girl. 

“ A decent-lookin’ workin’-like body,” she answered. “I 
couldna see her verra weel, it’s sae foggy the nicht aboot the 
door.” 

“Tell her we’re at dinner ; she may call again in an hour. 
Or if she likes to leave a message — Stay : tell her to come 
again to-morrow morning. I wonder who she is,” he added, 
turning, he thought, to Gibbie. 

But Gibbie was gone. He had passed behind his chair, 
and all he saw of him was his back as he followed the girl 
from the room. In his eagerness he left the door open, and 
they saw him dart to the visitor, shake hands with her in 
evident delight, and begin pulling her toward the room. 

Now Mistress Croale, though nowise inclined to quail before 
the minister, would not willingly have intruded herself upon 
him, especially while he sat at dinner with his rather formid- 
able lady ; but she fancied, for she stood where she could 
not see into the dining-room, that Gibbie was taking her v'here 
they might have a quiet news together, and, occupied with her 
bonnet or some other source of feminine disquiet, remained 
thus mistaken until she stood on the threshold, when, looking 
up, she started, stopped, made an obedience to the minister, 
and another to the minister’s lady, and stood doubtful, if not 
a little abashed. 

“Not here! my good woman,” said Mr. Sclater, rising. 
“ — Oh, it’s you. Mistress Croale ! — I will speak to you in the 
hall.” 

Mrs. Croale’s face flushed, and she drew back a step. But 
Gibbie still held her, and with a look to Mr. Sclater 
that should have sent straight to his heart the fact that she 
was dear to his soul, kept drawing her into the room ; he 
wanted her to take his chair at the table. It passed swiftly 
through her mind that one who had been so intimate both 
with Sir George and Sir Gibbie in the old time, and had given 
the latter his tea every Sunday night for so long, might surely, 
even in such changed circumstances, be allowed to enter the 
same room with him, however grand it might be ; and in- 
voluntarily almost she yielded half a doubtful step, while Mr. 
Sclater, afraid of offending Sir Gilbert, hesitated on the advance 
to prevent her. How friendly the warm air felt 1 how con- 
soling the crimson walls with the soft Acker of the great fire 
upon them I how delicious the odor of the cockie-leekie ! 
She could give up whisky agood deal more easily, she thought, 


THE SINNER. 


293 


if she had the comforts of a minister to fall back upon I And 
this was the same minister who had once told her that her soul 
was as precious to him as that of any other in his parish — and 
then driven her from respectable Jink Lane to the disreputable 
Daurfoot ! It all passed through her mind in a flash, while 
yet Gibbie pulled and she resisted. 

“Gilbert, come here,” called Mrs. Sclater. 

He went to her side, obedient and trusting as a child. 

“Really^ Gilbert you must not,” she said, rather loud for 
a whisper. “It won’t do to turn things upside down this 
way. If you are to be a gentleman, and an inmate of my 
house, you must behave like other people. I cannot have a 
woman like that sitting at my table. Do you know what sort 
of a person she is ?” 

Gibbie’s face shone up. He raised his hands. He was 
already able to talk a little. 

“Is she a sinner ?” he asked on his Angers. 

Mrs. Sclater nodded. 

Gibbie wheeled round, and sprang back to the hall, whither 
the minister had, coming down upon her, bows on, like a sea- 
shouldering whale, in a manner ejected Mistress Croale, and 
where he was now talking to her with an air of confidential 
condescension, willing to wipe out any feeling of injury she 
might perhaps be inclined to cherish at not being made more 
welcome : to his consternation, Gibbie threw his arms round 
her neck and gave her a great hug. 

**Sir Gilbert!” he exclaimed very angry, and the more 
angry that he knew\\^ was in the right, “ leave Mistress Croale 
alone, and go back to your dinner immediately. Jane open 
the door. ” 

Jane opened the door, Gibbie let her go, and Mrs. Croale 
went. But on the threshold she turned. 

“Weel, sir,” she said, with more severity than pique, and 
a certain sad injury not unmingled with dignity, “yehae 
stappit ower my door-sill mony’s the time, an’ that wi’ sairer 
words i’ oer moo’ nor I ever mintit at peyin’ ye back’; an’ I 
never said ye gang. Sae first ye tarnt me oot’ o’ my ain’ hoose 
an’ noo ye turn me oot o’ yours ; an’ what’s left ye to turn 
me oot o’ but the hoose o’ the Lord ? An’, ’deed, sir ye need 
never won’er gien the likes o’ me disna care aboot gangin’ to 
hear a preaeht gospel : we wad fain set a practeesed ane I 
Gien ye had said tome noo the nicht,’ ‘Come awa’ been. 
Mistress Croale, an’ tak a plet o’ cockie-leekie wi’ ’s ; its a 
cauld nicht ; ’ it’s mysel’ wad hae been sae upliftit wi’ yer 
kin’ness,’ at I wad hae gane hame an’ ta’en — I dinna ken — 


294 


SIR GIBBIE. 


aiblins a read at my Bible, an’ been to be seen at the kirk upo* 
Sunday I wad — o' that ye may he sure ; for it’s a heap easier to 
gang to the kirk nor to read the buik yer lane, whaur ye canna 
help thinkin’ upo’ what its says to ye. But noo, as ’tis I’m 
awa’ name to the whuskey boatle, an’ the sin o’ ” gien there 
be ony in sic a’ nicht o’ cauld an’ fog, ’ill jist lie at your 
door. ” 

“ You shall have a plate of soup, and welcome. Mistress 
Croale ! ” said the minister, in a rather stagey tone of hospitality 

“ Jane, take Mistress Croale to the kitchen with you, 

and ” 

“The deil’s tail i’ your soup! “At I sud say’t!” cried 
Mistress Croale, drawing herself up suddenly, with a snort of 
anger; “whan turnt I beggar? I wad fain be informt 1 
Was’t your soup or yer grace I soucht till, sir ? The Lord be 
atween you an’ me 1 There’s first • ’at ’ill be last, an’ last at 
’ll be first. But the tane’s no me, an’ the tither’ no you sir, ” 

With this she turned and walked down the steps, hold- 
ing her head high. 

“Really, Sir Gilbert,” said the minister, going back into 
the dinning-room — but no Gibbie was there 1 — nobody but 
his wife, sitting in solitary discomposure at the head of her 
dinner-table. The same instant, he heard a clatter of feet 
down the steps, and turned quickly into the hall again, where 
Jane was in the act of shutting the door, 

“ Sir Gilbert’s run oot efterthe wuman, sir ! ” she said. 

“Hoot!” grunted the minister, greatly displeased, and 
went back to his wife. 

“Take Sir Gilbert’s plate away,” said Mrs. Sclater to the 
servant. 

“That’s his New Testament again! ’’she went on, when 
the girl had left the room. 

“My dear ! my dear ! take care,” said her husband. He 
had not much notion of obedience to God, but he had some 
idea of respect to religion. He was just an idolater of a 
Christian shade. 

Really, Mr. Sclater,” his wife continued, “ I had no idea 
what I was^ undertaking. But you gave me no choice. The 
creature is incorrigible. But of course he must prefer the 
society of women like that. They are the sort he was accus- 
tomed to when he received his first impressions, and how 
could it be otherwise? You knew how he had been brought 
up, and what you had to expect ! ” 

“Brought up ! ” cried the minister, and caused his spoon- 
ful of cockie-leekie to rush into his mouth with the noise of 


THE SINNER. 


295 


the German schurfer, then burst into a loud laugh. “You 
should have seen him about the streets ! — with his 
trowsers — 

‘ ‘ Mister Sclater ! Then you ought to have known better ! 
said his wife, and laying down her spoon, sat back into the 
embrace of her chair. 

But in reality she was not the least sorry he had undertaken 
the charge. She could not help loving the boy, and her 
words were merely the foam of vexation, mingled with not a 
little jealously, that he had left her, and his nice hot dinner, 
to go with the woman. Had she been a fine lady like herself 
I doubt if she would have liked it much better ; but she 
specially recoiled from coming into rivalry with one in whose 
house a horrid murder had been committed, and who had 
been before magistrates in consequence. 

Nothing further was said until the second course was on the 
table. Then the lady spoke again. 

“You really must, Mr. Sclater, teach him the absurdity of 
attempting to fit every point of his behavior to — to — words 
which were of course quite suitable to the time when they were 
spoken, but which it is impossible to take literally now-a- 
days — as impossible as to go about the streets with a great horn 
on your head and a veil hanging across it. Why ! ” Here she 
laughed — a laugh the less lady-like that, although it was both 
low and musical, it was scornful, and a little shaken by doubt 
“You saw him throw his arms around the horrid creature’s 
neck ! — Well, he had just asked me if she was a sinner. I 
made no doubt she was. Off with the word goes my gentle- 
man to embrace her ! ” 

Here they laughed together. 

Dinner over, they went to a missionary meeting, where the 
one stood and made a speech and the other sat and listened, 
while Gibbie was having tea with Mistress Croale. 

From that day Gibbie’s mind was much exercised as to 
what he could do for Mistress Croale, and now first he began 
to wish he had his money. As fast as he learned the finger- 
alphabet he had taught it to Donal, and, as already they had 
a good many symbols in use between them, so many indeed 
that Donal would often instead of speaking make use of signs, 
they had now the means of intercourse almost as free as if 
they had had between them two tongues instead of one. It 
was easy therefore for Gibbie to impart to Donal his anxiety 
concerning her, and his strong desire to help her, and doing 
so, he lamented in a gentle way his present inability. This 


296 


SIR GIBBIE. 


communication Donal judged it wise to impart in his turn to 
Mistress Croale. 

“Ye see mem/’ he said in conclusion, “ he’s some w’y or 
anither gotten ’t intil’s heid ’at ye’re jist a wheen owner free 
wi’ the boatle. I kenna. Ye’ll be the best jeedge o’ that 
yersel’ ! ” ^ 

Mistress Croale was silent for a whole minute by the clock. 
From the moment when Gibbie forsook his dinner and his 
grand new friends to go with her, the woman’s heart had 
begun to grow to the boy, and her old memories fed the new 
crop of affection. 

“Well,” she replied at length, with no little honesty, “ — I 
mayna be sae ill’s he thinks me, for he had aye his puir 
father afore ’s e’en ; but the bairn’s richt i’ the main, an’ we 
maun luik till’t, an’ see what can be dune ; for eh ! I wad be 
laith to disappint the bonnie laad ! — Maister Grant, gien ever 
there wis a Christi-an sowl upo’ the face o' this wickit warl’, 
that Christi-an sowl’s wee Sir Gibbie ! — an’ wha cud hae 
thoucht it ! But it’s the Lord’s doin’, an’ mervellous in oor 
eyes ! — Ow ! ye needna luik like that ; I ken my Bible on 
that ill ! ” she added, catching a glimmer of surprise on Donal’s 
countenance. But for that Maister Scleeter — dod ! I 
wadna be sair upon ’im — but gien he be fit to caw a nail here 
an’ a nail there, an fix a sklet or twa, creepin’ upo’ the riggin’ 
o’ the kirk, I’m weel sure he’s nae wise maister-builder fit to 
lay ony foundation. — Ay ! I tellt ye I kent my beuk no that 
ill ! ” she added with some triumph ; then resumed : “What 
the waur wad he or she or Sir Gibbie hae been though they 
hed inveetit me, as I was there, to sit me doon, an’ tak’ a 
plet o’ their cokie-leekie wi’ them ? There was ane ’at 
thought them ’at was far waur nor me, guid eneuch company 
for him ; an, maybe I may sit doon wi’ him efter a’, wi' the 
help o’ my bonnie wee Sir Gibbie. — I canna help ca’in’ him 
wee Sir Gibbie — a’ the toon ca’d ’im that, though haith ! he’ll 
be a big man or he behaud. An’ for ’s teetle, I was aye ane 
to gie honor whaur honar was due, an’ never ance, weel as I 
kenned him, did I ca’ his honest father, for gien ever there 
was an honest man yon was him ! — never did I ca’ him ony- 
thing but Sir George, naith mair nor less, an’ that though he 
vroucht at the hardest at the cobblin’ a’ the 00k, an’ upo’ 
Setterdays was pleased to hae a guid wash i’ myain bedroom 
an’ pit on a clean sark o’ my deid man’s, rist his sowl ! — no 
’at I’m a papist, Maister Grant, an’ aye kent better nor think 
it was ony eese prayin’ for them ’at’s gane ; for wha is there 
to pey ony heed to sic haithenish prayers as that wad be ? 


THE SINNER. 


297 

Ka ! we maun pray for the livin’ ’at it may dee some guid till 
an’ no for them ’at its a’ ower wi’ — the Lord hae mercy upo’ 
them ! 

My readers may suspect, one for one reason, another for 
another, that she had already, before Donal came that even- 
ing, been holding communion with the idol in the three- 
cornered temple of her cupboard ; and I confess that it was 
so. But it is equally true that before the next year was gone, 
she was a’shade better — and that not without considerable 
struggle, and more failures than successes. 

Upon one occasion — let those who analyze the workings of 
the human mind as they would the entrails of an eight-day 
clock, explain the phenomenom I am about to relate, or 
decline to believe it, as they choose — she became suddenly 
aware that she was getting perilously near the brink of actual 
drunkenness. 

“I’ll tak but this ae mou’fu’ mair,” she said to herself; 
“it’s but a mou’fu’, an’ its’s the last i’ the boatle, an’ it wad 
be a peety naebody to get the guid o’ ’t.” 

She poured it out. It was nearly half a glass. She took 
it in one large mouthful. But while she held it in her mouth 
to rhake the most of it, even while it was between her teeth, 
something smote her with the sudden sense that this very 
moment was the crisis of her fate, that now the axe was laid 
to the root of her tree. She dropped on her knees — not to 
pray like poor Sir George — but to spout the mouthful of 
whiskey into the fire. In roaring flame it rushed up the 
chimney. She started back, 

“ Eh ! ” she cried ; “ guid God? sic a deevil’s I maun be, 
to cairry the like o’ that i’ my inside ! — Lord ! I’m a perfec’ 
byke o’ deevils ! My name it maun be Legion. What is to 
become o ‘my puir sowl ! ” 

It was a week before she drank another drop — and then she 
took her devils with circumspection, and the firm resolve to 
let no more of them enter into her than she could manage to 
keep in order. 

Mr. and Mrs. Sclater got over their annoyance as well as 
they could, and agreed that in this case no notice should be 
taken of Gibbie’s conduct. 


298 


SIR GIBBIE. 


CHAPTER XLV. 

SHOALS AHEAD. 

It had come to be the custom that Gibbie should go to 
Donal every Friday afternoon about four o'clock, and remain 
with him till the same time on Saturday, which was a holiday 
with both. One Friday, just after he was gone, the temptation 
seized Mrs. Sclater to follow him, and, paying the lads an un- 
expected visit, see what they were about. 

It was a bright cold afternoon ; and in fur tippet and muff, 
amidst the snow that lay everywhere on roofs and window-sills 
and pavement, and the wind that blew cold as it blows in few 
places besides, she looked, with her bright color and shining 
eyes, like life itself laughing at death. But not many of those 
she met carried the like victory in their countenances, for the 
cold was bitter. As she approached the Widdiehill, she re- 
flected that she had followed Gibbie so quickly, and walked 
so fast, that the boys could hardly have had time to settle to 
anything, and resoved therefore to make a little round and 
spend a few more minutes upon the way. But as, through a 
a neighboring street, she was again approaching the Widdie- 
hill, she caught sight of something which, as she was passing a 
certain shop, that of a baker known to her as one of her hus- 
band’s parishioners, made her stop and look in through the 
glass which formed the upper half of the door. There she 
saw Gibbie, seated on the counter, dangling his legs, eating a 
penny loaf, and looking as comfortable as possible. “So 
soon after luncheon, too I ” said Mrs. Sclater to herself with 
indignation, reading through the spectacles of her anger a re- 
flection on her housekeeping. But a second look revealed, 
as she had dreaded, far weightier cause for displeasure : a very 
pretty girl stood behind the counter, with whose company 
Gibbie was evidently much pleased. She was fair of hue, 
with eyes of gray and green, and red lips whose smile showed 
teeth whiter than the whitest of flour. At the moment she 
was laughing merrily, and taking gaily to Gibbie. Clearly 
they were on the best of terms, and the boy’s bright counten- 
ance, laughter, and eager motions, were making full response 
to the girl’s words. 

Gibbie had been in the shop two or three times before, but 


SHOALS AHEAD. 


299 


this was the first time he had seen his old friend, Mysie, of the 
amethyst ear-ring. And now one of them had remained the 
other of that episode in which their histories had run together ; 
from that Mysie had gone on to other reminiscences of her 
childhood in which wee Gibbie bore a part, as he had, as well as 
he could, replied with others, of his, in which she was con- 
cerned. Mysie was a simple, well-behaved girl, and the en- 
trance of neither father nor mother would have made the least 
difference in her behavior to Sir Gilbert, though doubtless she 
was more pleased to have a chat with him than with her 
father’s apprentice, who could speak indeed, but looked dull 
as the dough he worked in, whereas Gibbie, although dumb, 
was radiant. But the faces of peopie talking often look more 
meaningful to one outside the talk-circle than they really are, 
and Mrs. Sclater, gazing through the glass, found, she 
imagined, large justification of displeasure. She opened the 
door sharply, and stepped in. Gibbie jumped from his seat 
on the counter, and, with a smile of playful roguery, offered it 
to her ; a vivid blush overspread Mysie’s fair countenance. 

“I thought you had gone to see Donal,” said Mrs. Sclater, 
in the tone of one deceived, and took np notice of the girl. 

Gibbie gave her to understand that Donal would arrive 
presently, and they were then going to the point of the pier, 
that Donal might learn what the sea was like in a nor’-easter. 

“But why did you make your appointment here?” asked 
the lady. 

‘ Because Mysie and I are old friends,” answered the boy 
on his fingers, 

Then first Mrs. Sclater turned to the girl : having got over 
her first indignation, she spoke gently and with a frankness 
riatural to her. 

“Sir Gilbert tells me you are old friends,” she said. 

Thereupon Mysie told her the story of the ear-ring, which 
had introduced their present conversation, and added several 
other little recollections, in one of which she was drawn into 
a description, half pathetic, half humorous, of the forlorn ap- 
pearance of wee Gibbie, as he ran about in his truncated 
trousers. Mrs. Sclater was more annoyed, however, than in- 
terested, for, in view of the young baronet’s future, she would 
have had all such things forgotten ; but Gibbie was full of 
delight in the vivid recollections thus brought him of some of 
the less painful portions of his past, and appreciated every 
graphic word that fell from the girl’s pretty lips. 

Mrs. Sclater took good pare not to leave until Donal came. 
Then the boys, having, asked ’her if she would- not go with 


300 


SIR GIBBIE. 


them, which invitation she declined with smiling thanks, 
took their departure and went to pay their visit to the Ger- 
man Ocean, leaving her with Mysie — which they certainly 
would not have done, could they have forseen how the well- 
meaning lady — nine-tenths of the mischiefs in the world are 
well-meant — would hurt the feelings of the gentle-condi- 
tioned girl. For a long time after, as often as Gibbie entered 
the shop, Mysie left it and her mother came — a result alto- 
gether as Mrs. Sclater would have had it. But hardly any- 
body was ever in less danger of falling in love than Gibbie ; 
and the thing would not have been worth recording, but for 
the new direction it caused in Mrs. Sclater’s thoughts ; mea- 
sures, she judged, must be taken. 

Gladly as she would have centred Gibbie’s boyish affec- 
tions in herself, she was too conscientious and experienced 
not to regard the danger of any special effort in that direc- 
tion, and began therefore to cast about in her mind what 
could be done to protect him from one at least of the natural 
consequences of his early familiarity with things unseemly — 
exposure, namely, to the risk of forming low alliances — the 
more imminent that it was much too late to attempt any re- 
striction of his liberty, so as to keep him from roaming the 
city at his pleasure. Recalling what her husband had told 
her of the odd meeting between the boy and a young lady at 
Miss Kimble's school — some relation, she thought he had 
said — also the desire to see her again which Gibbie, on more 
than one occasion, had shown, she thought whether she 
could turn the acquaintance to account. She did not much 
like Miss Kimble, chiefly because of her affectations — which, 
by the way, were caricatures of her own ; but she knew her 
very well, and there was no reason why she should not ask 
her to come and spend the evening, and bring two or three 
of the elder girls with her : a little familiarity with the looks, 
manners, and dress of refined girls of his own age, would be 
the best antidote to his taste for low society, from that of 
bakers' daughters downwards. 

It was Mrs. Sclater’s own doing that Gibbie had not again 
spoken to Ginevra. Nowise abashed at the thought of the 
grenadier or her army of doves, he would have gone, the very 
next day after meeting them in the street, to call upon her : 
it was some good, he thought, of being a rich instead of a 
poor boy, that, having lost thereby those whom he loved best, 
he had come where he could at least see Miss Galbraith ; but 
Mrs. Sclater had pretended not to understand where he 
wanted to go, and used other artifices besides— -well-meant. 


SHOALS AHEAD. 


301 


of course — to keep him to herself until she should better un- 
derstand him. After that he had seen Ginevra more than 
once at church, but had had no chance of speaking to her. 
For, in the sudden dispersion of its agglomerate particles, a 
Scotch congregation is — or was in Gibbie's time — very like 
the well-known vitreous drop called a Prince Rupert’s tear, 
in which the mutually repellant particles are held together by a 
strongly contracted homogeneous layer — to separate with ex- 
plosion the instant the tough skin is broken and vibration in- 
troduced ; and as Mrs. Sclater generally sat in her dignity to 
the last, and Gibbie sat with her, only once was he out in 
time to catch a glimpse of the ultimate rank of the retreating 
girls. He was just starting to pursue them, when Mrs. Sclater, 
perceiving his intention, detained him by requesting the sup- 
port of his arm — a way she had, pretending to be weary, or 
to have given her ’ankle a twist, when she wanted to keep 
him by her side. Another time he had followed them close 
enough to see which turn they took out of Daur-street ; but 
that was all he had learned, and when the severity of the 
winter arrived, and the snow lay deep, sometimes for weeks 
together, the chances of meeting them were few. The first time 
the boys went out together, that when they failed to find Mis- 
tress Croale’s garret, they made an excursion in search of the 
girl’s school, but had been equally unsuccessful in that ; and 
although they never after went for a walk without contriving 
to pass through some part of the region in which they 
thought it must lie, they had never yet even discovered a 
house upon which they could agree as presenting probabili- 
ties. 

Mr. Galbraith did not take Miss Kimble into his confidence 
with respect to his reasons for so hurriedly placing his 
daughter under her care : he was far too reticent, too proud, 
and too much hurt for that. Hence, when Mrs. Sclater’s in- 
vitation arrived, the schoolmistress was aware of no reason 
why Miss Galbraith should not be one of the girls to go with 
her, especially as there was her cousin. Sir Gilbert, whom she 
herself would like to meet again, in the hope of removing 
the bad impression which, in the discharge of her duty, she 
feared she must have made upon him. 

One day, then, at luncheon, Mrs. Sclater told Gibbie that 
some ladies were coming to tea, and they were going to have 
supper instead of dinner. He must put on his best clothes, 
she said. He did as she desired, was duly inspected, ap- 
proved on the whole, and finished off by a few deft fingers at 
his necktie, and a gentle push or two from the loveliest of 


302 


SIR GIBBIE. 


hands against his hair-thatch, and was seated in the drawing- 
room with Mrs. Sclater when the ladies arrived. Ginevra and 
he shook hands, she with the sweetest of rose-flushes, he with 
the radiance of delighted surprise. But, a moment after, 
when Mrs. Sclater and her guests had seated themselves, Gib- 
bie, their only gentleman, for Mr. Sclater had not yet made 
his appearance, had vanished from the room. Tea was not 
brought until some time after, when Mr. Sclater came home, 
and then Mrs. Sclater sent Jane to find Sir Gilbert ; but she 
returned to say he was not in the house. The lady’s heart 
sank, her countenance fell, and all was gloom : her project 
had miscarried ! he was gone ! who could tell whither 
perhaps to the baker’s daughter, or to the horrid woman 
Croale ! 

The case was however very much otherwise. The moment 
Gibbie ended his greetings, he had darted off to tell Donal : 
it was not his custom to enjoy alone anything sharable. 

The news that Ginevra was at that moment seated in Mrs. 
Sclater’s house, at that moment, as his eagerness had mis- 
understood Gibbie’s, expecting his arrival, raised such a com- 
motion in Donal’s atmosphere, that for a time it was but a 
huddle of small whirlwinds. His heart was beating like the 
trample of a trotting horse. He never thought of inquiring 
whether Gibbie had been commissioned by Mrs. Sclater to 
invite him, or reflected that his studies were not half over for 
the night. An instant before the arrival of the blessed fact, 
he had been absorbed in a rather abstruse metaphysico- 
mathematical question ; now not the metaphysics of the uni- 
verse would have appeared to him worth a moment’s medita- 
tion. He went pacing up and down the room, and seemed 
lost to everything. Gibbie shook him at length, and told him, 
by two signs, that he must put on his Sunday clothes. Then 
first shyness, like the shroud of northern myth that lies in 
wait in a man’s path, leaped up, and wrapped itself around 
him. It was very well to receive ladies in a meadow, quite 
another thing to walk into their company in a grand room, 
such as, before entering Mrs. Sclater’s, he had never beheld 
even in Fairyland or the Arabian Nights. He knew the ways 
of the one, and not the ways of the other. Chairs ornate 
were doubtless poor things to daisied banks, yet the other 
day he had hardly brought himself to sit on one of Mrs. 
Sclater’s ! It was a moment of awful seeming. But what 
would he not face to see once more the lovely lady-girl ! Fie 
bethought himself that he w'as no longer a cowherd but a 
student, and that sech feelings were unworthy of one who 


SHOALS AHEAD. 


303 

would walk level with his fellows. He rushed to the labors 
of his toilette, performed severe ablutions, endued his best 
shirt — coarse, but sweet from the fresh breezes of Glashgar, a 
pair of trousers of buff-colored fustian stamped over with a 
black pattern, an olive-green waistcoat, a blue tailcoat with 
lappets behind, and a pair of well-polished shoes, the soles 
of which in honor of Sunday were studded with small instead 
of large knobs of iron, set a tall beaver hat, which no brush- 
ing would make smooth, on the back of his head, stuffed a 
silk hankerchief, crimson and yellow, in his pocket, and de- 
clared himself ready. 

Now Gibbie, although he would not have looked so well 
in his wooly coat in Mrs. Sclater’s drawing-room as on the 
rocks of Glashgar, would have looked better in almost any 
other than evening dress, now, alas ! nearly European. Mr. 
Sclater, on the other hand, would have looked worse in any 
other because being less commonplace it would have been less 
like himself ; and so long as the commonplace conventional so 
greatly outnumber the simply individual, it is perhaps well the 
present fashion should hold. But Donal could hardly have on 
any clothes that would have made him look worse, either in re- 
spect of himself or of the surroundings of social life, than those 
he now wore. Neither of the boys, however, had begun to 
think about dress in relation either to custom or to fitness, and 
it was with complete satisfaction that Gibbie carried off Donal 
to present to the guest of his guardians. 

Donafs preparations had taken a long time, and before 
they reached the house, tea was over and gone. They had 
had some music ; and Mrs. Sclater was now talking kindly 
to two of the school-girls, wEo, seated erect on the sofa, w^ere 
looking upon her elegance with awe and envy. Ginevra was 
looking at the pictures of an annual. Mr. Sclater was mak- 
ing Miss Kimble agreeable to herself. He had a certain gift 
of talk — depending in a great measure on the assurance of 
being listened to an assurance which is, alas ! nowise the less 
hurtful to many a clergyman out of the pulpit, that he may 
be equally aware no one heeds him in it. 


I 


304 


SIR GIBCIE. 


CHAPTER XLVI. 

THE GIRLS. 

The door was opened. Donal spent fully a minute rub- 
bing his shoes on the mat, as diligently as if he had just come 
out of the cattle-yard, and then Gibbie led him in triumph 
up the stair to the drawing-room. Donal entered in that 
loose-jointed way which comes of the brains being as yet all 
in the head, and stood, resisting Gibbie’s pull on his arm, 
his keen hazel eyes looking gently round upon the com- 
pany, until he caught sight of the face he sought, when, with 
the stride of a sower of corn, he walked across the room to 
Ginevra. Mrs. Sclater rose ; Mr. Sclater threw himself back 
and stared ; the latter astounded at the presumption of the 
youths, the former uneasy at the possible results of their 
ignorance. To the astonishment of the company, Ginevra 
rose, respect and modesty in every feature, as the youth, 
clownish rather than awkward, approached her, and almost 
timidly held out her hand to him. He took it in his horny 
palm, shook it hither and thither sideways, like a leaf in a 
doubtful air, then held it like a precious thing he was at once 
afraid of crushing by too tight a grasp, and of dropping from 
too loose a hold, until Ginevra took charge of it herself again. 
Gibbie danced about behind him, all but standing on one leg, 
but for Mrs. Selater’s sake, restraining himself. Ginevra sat 
down, and Donal, feeling very large and clumsy, and want- 
ing to “be naught a while,"' looked about him for a chair, 
and then first espying Mrs. Sclater, went up to her with the 
same rolling, clamping stride, but without embarrassment, 
and said, holding out his hand. 

“ Hoo are ye the nicht, mem ! I sawna yer bonnie face 
whan I cam in. A gran' hoose, like this o’ yours — an I’m 
sure, mem, it cudna be ower gran’ to fit yersel’, but it’s jist 
some perplexin’ to plain fowk like me,’at’s been used to mair 
room, an’ less intill’t.” 

Donal was thinking of the meadow on the Lorrie Bank. 

“ I was sure of it ! ” remarked Mrs. Sclater to herself. 
“One of nature’s gentleman ! He would soon be taught.” 

She was right ! but he was more than a gentleman, and 


THE GIRLS. 305 

could have taught her what she could have taught nobody in 
turn. 

“You will soon get accustomed to our town ways, Mr. 
Grant. But many of the things we gather about us are far 
more trouble than use,'" she replied, in her sweetest tones, 
and with a gentle pressure of the hand, which went a long 
way to set him at his ease. “I am glad to see you have 
friends here,” she added. 

“ Only ane, mem. Gibbie an" me 

“ Excuse me, Mr. Grant, but would you oblige me — of 
course with me it is of no consequence, but just for habit’s 
sake, would you oblige me by calling Gilbert by his own 
name — Sir Gilbert, please. I wish him to get used to it.” 

“ Yer wull be’t, mem. Weel, as I was sayin". Sir Gibbie — 
Sir Gilbert, that is, mem — an mysel’, we hae kenned Miss 
Galbraith this lang time, bein’ o’ the laird’s ain fowk, as I 
may say.” 

“Will you take a seat beside her, then,” said Mrs. Sclater, 
and rising, herself placed a chair for nim near Ginevra won- 
dering how any Scotch laird, the father of such a little lady 
as she, could have allowed her such an acquaintance. 

To most of the company he must have looked very queer. 
Gibbie, indeed, was the only one who saw the real Donal. 
Miss Kimble and her pupils stared at the distorted reflexion 
of him in the spoon-bowl of their own elongated narrowness ; 
Mrs. Sclater saw the possible gentleman through the loop-hole 
of a compliment he had paid her ; and Mr. Sclater beheld 
only the minim which the reversed telescope of his own en- 
larged importance, having himself come of sufficiently humble 
origin, made of him ; while Ginevra looked up to him more 
as one who marvelled at the grandly unintelligible, than one 
who understood the relations and proportions of what she be- 
held. Nor was it possible she could help feeling that he was 
a more harmonious object to the eye both of body and mind 
when dressed in his corduroys and blue bonnet, walking the 
green fields, with cattle about him, his club under his arm, 
and a book in his hand. So seen, his natural dignity was 
evident ; now he looked undeniably odd. A poet needs a 
fine house rather than a fine dress to set him off, and Mrs. 
Sclater’s drawing-room was neither large nor beautiful enough 
to frame this one, especially with his Sunday clothes to get 
the better of. To the school ladies, mistress and pupils, he 
was simply a clodhopper, and from their report became a 
treasure of poverty-stricken amusement to the school. Often 
did Ginevra’s cheek burn with indignation at the small inso* 


SIR GIBBIE. 


306 

lences of her fellow-pupils. At first she attempted to make 
them understand something of what Donal really was, but 
finding them unworthy of the confidence, was driven to be- 
take herself to such a silence as put a stop to their offensive 
remarks in her presence. 

“I thank ye, mem,"' said Donal, as he took the chair; 
‘‘ye’re verra condescendin’.” Then turning to Ginevra, and 
trying to cross one knee over the other, but failing from the 
tightness of certain garments, which, like David with Saul’s 
not similarly faulty armor, he had not hitherto proved, 
“Weel, mem,” he said “ ye haena forgotten Hornie, I houp.” 

The other girls must be pardoned for tittering, offensive as 
is the habit so common to their class, for the only being they 
knew by that name was one to whom the merest reference sets 
pit and gallery in a roar. Miss Kimble was shocked — dts~ 
^usted^ she said afterwards ; and until she learned that the 
clown was there uninvited, cherished a grudge against Mrs. 
Sclater. 

Ginevra smiled him a satisfactory negative. 

“I never read the ballant aboot the worm lingelt roun’ the 
tree,” said Donal, making rather a long link in the chain of 
association, “ohn thoucht upo’ that day, mem, whan first ye 
cam doon the brae wi’ my sister Nicie, an’ I cam ower the 
burn till ye, an’ ye garred me lauch aboot weetin’ o’ my feet I 
Eh, mem ! wi’ you afore me there, I see the blew lift again, 
an’ the gerse jist lowin’ (flaining) green, an’ the mowt at their 
busiest, the win’ asleep, an’ the burn sayin’, ‘Ye need nane 
o’ ye speyk : I’m here, an’ it’s my business.’ Eh, mem I 
whan I think upo’ ’t a’, it seems to me ’at the human hert 
closed i’ the mids o’ sic a coffer o’ cunnin’ workmanship, 
maun be a terrible precious-like thing.” 

Gibbie, behind Donal’s chair, seemed pulsing light at every 
pore, but the rest of the company, understanding his words 
perfectly, yet not comprehending a single sentance he uttered, 
began to wonder whether he was out of his mind, and were 
perplexed to see Ginevra listening to him with such respect. 
They saw a human offence where she knew a poet. A word 
is a word, but its interpretations are many, and the under- 
standing of a man’s words depends both on what the hearer 
is, and on what is his idea of the speaker. As to the pure 
all things are pure, because only purity can enter, so to the 
vulgar all things are vulgar, because only the vulgar can 
enter. Wherein then is the commonplace man to be blamed, 
for as he is, so must he think ! In this, that he consents to 
be commonplace, willing to live after his own idea of him- 


THE GIRLS. 


307 


self, and not after God’s idea of him — the real idea, which, 
every now and then stirring in him, makes him uneasy with 
silent rebuke. 

Ginevra said little in reply. She had not much to say. In 
her world the streams were still, not vocal. But Donal meant 
to hold a little communication with her which none of them, 
except indeed Gibbie — he did not mind Gibbie — should 
understand. 

“I hed sic a queer dream the ither nicht, mem,” he said, 
“an’ I’ll jist tell ye’t. — I thoucht I was doon in an awfu’ kin’ 
o’ a weet bog, wi’ dry graivelly-like hills a’ aboot it, an’ 
naething npo’ them but a wheen short hunger-like gerse. 
An’ oot o’ the mids o’ the bog there grew jist a tree — a saugh, 
I think it was, but unco auld — ’maist past kennin’ wi’ age ; 
an’ roun’ the rouch gnerlet trunk o’ ’t was twistit three faulds 
o’ the oogliest, ill-fauredest cratur o’ a serpent ’at ever was 
seen. It was jist laithly to luik upo’. I cud describe it till ye, 
I men, but it wad only gar ye runkle yer bonny broo, an’ luik as 
wadna hae ye luik, mem, ’cause ye wadna luik freely sae bonny 
as ye div noo whan ye luik jist yersel’. But ae queer thing was, 
’at atween hit an’ the tree it grippit a buik, an’ I kent it for the 
buik o’ ballants. An’ I gaed nearer, luikin’ an’ luikin’, an’ 
some frichtit. But I wadna stan’ for that, for that wad be to 
be caitiff vile, an’ no true man : I gaed nearer an’ nearer, till 
I had gotten within a yaird o’ the tree, whan a’ at ance, wi’ a 
swing an’ a swirl, I was three-fauld aboot the tree, an’ 
the laithly worm was me mesel’ ; an’ I was the laithly worm. 
The vera hert gaed frae me for hoarible dreid, an’ scunner at 
mysel’ ! Sae there I was ! But I wasna lang there i’ my 
meesery, afore I saw, oot o’ my ain serpent e’en, maist blin’t 
wi’ greitin’, ower the tap o’ the brae afore me, ’atween me an’ 
the lift, as gien it reacht up to the verra stars, for it wasna 
day but nicht by this time aboot me, as weel it micht be, — I 
saw the bonny sicht come up o’ a knicht in airmour, helmet 
an’ shield an’ iron sheen an’ a’ ; but somehoo I kent by the 
gang an’ the stan’ an’ the sway o’ the bonny boady o’ the 
knicht,’ ’at it was nae man, but a wuman. — Ye see, mem, 
sin I cam frae Daurside, I hae been able to get a grip o’ buiks 
’at I cudna get up there ; an’ I hed been readin’ spenser’s 
Fairy Queen the nicht afore, a’ yon aboot the lady ’at pat on 
the airmour o’ a man, an’ foucht like a guid ane for the richt 
an’ the trowth — an’ that hed putten ’t i’ my heid maybe ; only 
whan I saw her, I kent her, an’ her name wasna Britomart. 
She had a twistit brainch o’ blew berries aboot her helmet, 
an’ they ca’d her Juniper; wacna that <^ue^r, xioof ..Ari’fcl.f 


SIR GIBBIE. 


308 

cam doon the hill wi’ bonny big strides, no ower big for a 
stately wuman, but eh, sae different frae the nipperty mincin' 
stippety-stap o' the leddies ye see upo' the streets here ! An' 
sae she cam doon the bree. An' I soucht sair to cry oot — 
first o’ a' to till her gien she didna luik till her feet, she wad 
be lairt i’ the bog, an' syne to beg o' her for mercy's sake to 
draw her swoord, an’ caw the oogly heid aff o’ me, an' lat me 
dee. Noo I maun confess ’at the ballant o' Kemp Owen was 
rinnin’ i' the worm-heid o' me, an' 1 cudna help thinkin' what, 
notwithstan'in' the cheenge o' ban's i’ the story, lay still to the 
pairt o' the knicht ; but hoo was ony man, no to say a mere 
ugsome serpent, to mint at sic a thing till a leddy, whether 
she was in steel beets an’ spurs or in lang train an’ silver 
slippers ? An' haith ! I sune fan' 'at I cudna hae spoken the 
word, gien I had daured ever sae stoot. For whan I opened 
my moo’ to cry till her, I cud dee naething but snot oot a 
forkit tongue, an’ cry sss. Mem, it was dreidfu' ! Sae I had 
jist to tak in my tongue again, an' say naething, for fear o' 
fleggin' awa’ my bonny leddy i' the steel claes. An’ she cam 
an’ cam, doon an' doon, an’ on to the bog ; an’ for a' the 
weicht o’ her airmour she sankna a fit intill 't. An’ she cam, 
an’ she stude, an’ she luikit at me ; an' I hed seen her afore, 
an' kenned her weel. An' she luikit at me, an’ aye luikit ; 
'an I winna say what was i' the puir worm’s hert. But at the 
last she gae a gret sich, an' a sab, like, an' stude jist as gien 
she was tryin’ sair, but could not mak up her bonny min' to 
yon 'at was i’ the ballant. An’ eh ! hoo I grippit the buik 
atween me an’ the tree — for there it was — a’ as I saw 't afore ! 
An’ sae at last she gae a kin’ o’ a cry, an’ turnt an' gaed awa', 
wi' her heid hingin’ doon, an' her swoord trailin’, an' never 
turnt to luik ahint her, but up the brae, an ower the tap o' 
the hill, an’ doon an’ awa' ; an' the brainch wi' the blew 
berries was the last I saw o’ her gaein' doon like the meen 
ahint the hill. An' jist wi' the fell greitin’ I cam to mysel', 
an' my hert was gaein' like a pump 'at wad fain pit oot a fire. 
Noo wasna that a queer-like dream? I'll no say, mem, 
but I hae curriet an’ kaimbt it up a wee, to gar't tell better.” 

Ginevra had from the first been absorbed in listening, and 
her brown eyes seemed to keep growing larger and larger as 
he went on. Even the girls listened and were silent, looking 
as if they saw a peacock's feather in a turkey’s tail. When 
he ended, the tears rushed from Ginevra’s eyes — for bare 
sympathy — she had no perception of personal intent in the 
parable ; it was long before she saw into the name of the 
lady-knight, for she had never been told the English of 


THE GIRLS. 309 

Ginevra ; she was the simplest, sweetest of girls, and too 
young to suspect anything in the heart of a man. 

‘ ‘ O Donal ! ” she said, ‘ ‘ I am very sorry for the poor 
worm ; but it was naughty of you to dream such a dream. " 

“ Hoo’s that, mem returned Donal, a little frightened. 

“ It was not fair of you,” she replied, “ to dream a knight 
of a lady, and then dream her doing such an unknightly 
thing. I am sure if ladies went out in that way, they would 
do quite as well, on the whole, as gentlemen.” 

‘ ‘ I mak 7tae doobt o’ ’t, mem : h'aven forbid ! ” cried 
Donal ; “but you see dreams is sic senseless things ’at they 
winna be helpit ; — an’ that was hoo I dreemt it.” 

“Well, well, Donal!” broke in the harsh pompous voice 
of Mr. Sclater, who, unknown to the poet, had been standing 
behind him almost the whole time, “you have given the 
ladies quite enough of your romancing. That sort of thing, 
you know, my man, may do very well round the fire in the 
farm kitchen, but it’s not the sort of thing for a drawing- 
room. Besides, the ladies don’t understand your word of 
mouth ; they don’t understand such broad Scotch. Come 
with me, and I’ll show you something you would like to 
see. ” 

He thought Donal was boring his guests, and at the sam e 
time preventing Gibbie from having the pleasure in their 
society for the sake of which they had been invited. 

Donal rose, replying, 

“ Think ye sae, sir? I thoucht I was in auld Scotian, 
still — here as weeks upo’ Glashgar. But may be my jography 
bulk’s some auld-fashioned. Didna ye un’erstan’ me, mem ? 
he added, turning to Ginevra. 

“Every word, Donal” she answered. 

Donal followed his host contented. 

Gibbie took his place, and began to teach Ginevra the 
finger alphabet. The other girls found him far more amus- 
ing than Donal — first of all because he could not not speak, 
which was much less objectonable than speaking like Donal 
— and funny too, though not so funny as Donal’s clothes. 
And then he had such a romantic history ! and was a baronet 1 

In a few minutes Ginevra knew the letters, and presently 
she and Gibbie w'ere having a little continuous talk together, 
a thing they had never had before. It was so slow, however, 
as to be rather tiring. It was mainly about Donal. But 
Mrs. Sclater opened the piano, and made a diversion. She 
played something brilliant, and then sang an Italian song in 
strillaceous style, revealing to Donal’s clownish ignorance a 


310 


SIR GIBBIE. 


thorough mastery of caterwauling. Then she asked Miss 
Kimble to play something, who declined, without mention- 
ing that she had neither voice nor ear nor love of music, but 
Miss Galbraith should sing — “ for once in a way, as a treat.— 
That little Scotch song you sing now and then, my dear,” 
she added. 

Ginevra rose timidly, but without hesitation, and going to 
the piano, sang, to a simple old Scotch air, to which they 
had been written, the following verses. Before she ended, 
the minister, the late herd-boy, and the baronet were grouped 
crescent-wise behind the music stool. 

I dinna ken what’s come ower me ! 

There’s a how whar ance was a hert ; [^hollow) 

I never luik oot afore me, 

An’ a cry winna gar me stert ; 

There’s naething nae mair to come ower me, 

Blaw the win’ frae ony airt. {quarter) 

For i’ yon kirkyaird there’s a hillock, 

A hert whaur ance was a how ; 

An’ o’ joy there’s no left a mealock — {crumb) 

Deid aiss whaur once was a low ; {ashes) {[flame') 

For i^, yon kirkyaird, i’ the hillock, 

Lies a seed ’at winna grow. 

It’s my hert ’at bauds up the wee hillie — 

That’s hoo there’s a how i’ my breist ; 

It’s awa’ doon there wi’ my Willie, 

Gaed wi’ him whan he was releast ; 

It’s doon i’ the green-grown hillie. 

But I s’ be efter it neist. 

Come awa’, nichts an’ mornin’s. 

Come ooks, years, a’ time’s clan ; 

Ye’re walcome ayont a’ scornin’: 

Tak me till him as fest as ye can. 

Come awa’, nichts an’ mornin’s. 

Ye are wings o’ a michty span ! 

For I ken he’s luikin’ an’ waitin’, 

Luikin’ aye doon as I dim’ : 

Wad I hae him see me sit greitin’, 

I’stead o’ gaein’ to him ? 

I’ll step oot like ane sure o’ a meetin’, ' 

I’ll traivel an’ rin to him. 

Three of them knew that the verses were Donaks. If the 
poet went home feeling more like a fellow in a blue coat and 
fustian trowsers, or a winged genius of the tomb, I leave my 
reader to judge. Anyhow, he felt he had had enough for 


A LESSON OF WISDOM. 


311 

one evening, and was able to encounter his work again. 
Perhaps also, when supper was announced, he reflected that 
his reception had hardly been such as to justify him in par- 
taking of their food, and that his mother’s hospitality to Mr. 
Sclater had not been in expectation of return. As they went 
down the stair, he came last and alone, behind the two 
whispering school-girls ; and when they passed on into the 
dining-room, he spilt out of the house, and ran home to the 
furniture-shop and his books. 

When the ladies took their leave, Gibbie walked with 
them. And now at last he learned where to find Ginevra. 


CHAPTER XLVII. 

A LESSON OF WISDOM. 

In obedience to the suggestion of his wife, Mr. Sclater did 
what he could to show Sir Gilbert how mistaken he was in 
imagining he could fit his actions to the words of our Lord. 
Shocked as even he would probably have been at such a 
characterization of his attempt, it amounted practically to 
this : Do not waste your powers in the endeavor to keep the 
commandments of our Lord, for it cannot be done, and he 
knew it could not be done, and never meant it should be done. 
He pointed out to him, not altogether unfairly, the difficult- 
ies, and the causes of mistake, with regard to his words ; but 
said nothing to reveal the spirit and the life of them. Show- 
ing more of them to be figures than at first appeared, he made 
out the meanings of them to be less, not more than the figures, 
his pictures to be greater than their subjects, his parables 
larger and more lovely than the truths they represented. In 
the whole of his lecture, through which ran from begining to 
end a tone of reproof, there was not one flash of enthusiasm 
for our Lord, not a sign that, to his so-called minister, he was 
a refuge, or a delight — that he who is the joy of his Father’s 
heart, the essential bliss of the universe, was anything .to the 
soul of his creature, who besides had taken upon him to preach 
his good news, more than a name to call himself by — that the 
story of the Son of God was to him anything better than the 
soap and water wherewith to blow theological bubbles with 
the tobacco-pipe of his speculative understanding. The tend- 
ency of it was simpl) to the quelling of all true effort after the 


312 


SIR GIBBIE. 


knowing of him through obedience, the quenching of all 
devotion to the central good. Doubtless Gibbie, as well as 
many a wiser man, might now and then make a mistake in 
t-ie embodiment of his obedience, but even where the action 
misses the command, it may yet be obedience to him who 
gave the command, and by obeying one learns how to obey. 
I hardly know, however, where Gibbie blundered, except it 
was in failing to recognize the animals before whom he ought 
not to cast his pearls — in taking it for granted that, because 
his guardian was a minister, and his wife a minister’s wife, 
they must therefore be the disciples of the Jewish carpenter, 
the eternal Son of the Father of us all. Had he had more 
of the wisdom of the serpent, he would not have carried them 
the New Testament as an ending of strife, the words of the 
Lord as an enlightening law ; he would perhaps have known 
that to try too hard to make people good, is one way to make 
them worse : that the only way to make them good is to be 
good — remembering well the beam and the mote : that the 
time for speaking comes rarely, the time for being never 
departs. 

But in talking thus to Gibbie, the minister but rippled the 
air : Gibbie was all the time pondering with himself where he 
had met the same kind of thing, the same sort of person be- 
fore. Nothing he said had the slightest effect upon him. He 
was too familiar with truth to take the yeasty bunghole of a 
w'orking barrel for a fountain of its waters. The uuseen Lord 
and his reported words were to Gibbie realities, compared 
with which the very visible Mr. Sclater and his assured utter- 
ance were as the merest seemings of a ’phanton mood. He 
had never resolved to keep the words of the Lord : he just 
kept them ; but he knew amongst the rest the Lord’s words 
about the keeping of his words, and about being ashamed of 
him before men, and it was with a pitiful indignation he heard 
the minister’s wisdom drivel past his ears. What he would 
have said, and withheld himself from saying, had he been able 
to speak, I cannot tell ; I only know that in such circum- 
stances the less said the better, for what can be more unprofit- 
able than a discussion where but one of the disputants under- 
stands the question, and the other has all the knowledge ? It 
would have been the eloquence of the wise and the prudent 
against the perfected praise of the suckling. 

The effect of it all upon Gibbie was to send him to his room 
to his prayers, more eager than ever to keep the command- 
ments of him who had said, If ye Icve me. Comforted then 
and strengthened, he came down to go to Donal — not to tell 


A LESSON OF WISDOM. 313 

him, for to none but Janet could he have made such a com- 
munication. But in the middle of his descent he remembered 
suddenly of what and whom Mr. Sclater had all along been 
reminding him, and turned aside to Mrs. Sclater to ask her to 
lend him the Pilgrim’s Progress. This, as a matter almost of 
course, was one of the few books in the cottage on Glashgar — a 
book beloved of Janet’s soul — and he had read it again and 
again. Mrs. Sclater told him where in her room to find a copy, 
and presently he had satisfied himself that it was indeed Mr. 
Worldly Wiseman whom his imagination had, in cloudy 
fashion, been placing side by side with the talking minister. 

Finding his return delayed, Mrs. Sclater went after him, fear- 
ing he might be indulging his curiosity amongst her personal 
possessions. Peeping in. she saw him seated on the floor be- 
side her little bookcase, lost in reading : she stole behind, and 
found that what so absorbed him was the conversation be- 
tween Christian and Worldly — I beg his pardon, he is noth- 
ing without his Mr . — between Christian and Mr. Worldly 
Wiseman. 

In the evening, when her husband was telling her what he 
had said to ‘‘the young Pharisee” in the morning, the picture 
of Gibbie on the floor, with the Pilgrim’s Progress and Mr. 
Worldly Wiseman, flashed back on her mind, and she told 
him the thing. It stung him, not that Gibbie should perhaps 
have so paralleled him, but that his wife should so interpret 
Gibbie. To her, however, he said nothing. Had he been a 
better man, he would have been convinced by the lesson ; as 
it was, he was only convicted, and instead of repenting, was 
offended grievously. For several days he kept expecting the 
religious gadfly to come buzzing about him with his sting, 
that is, his forefinger, stuck in the Pilgrim’s Progress, and had 
a swashing blow ready for him ; but Gibbie was beginning to 
learn a lesson or two, and if he was not yet so wise as some 
serpents, he had always been more harmless than some 
doves. 

That he had gained nothing for the world was pretty evi- 
dent to the minister the following Sunday — from the lofty 
watch-tower of the pulpit where he sat throned, while the first 
psalm was being sung. His own pew was near one of the 
side doors, and at that door some who were late kept coming 
in. Amongst them were a stranger or two, who were at once 
shown to seats. Before the psalm ended, an old man came 
in and stood by the door — a poor man in mean garments, 
with the air of a beggar who had contrived to give himself a 
Sunday look. Perfiaps he had come hoping to find it warmer 


SIR GIBBIE. 


3H 

in church than at home. There he stood, motionless as the 
leech-gatherer leaning on his stick, disregard of men — it may 
have been only innocent accident, I do not know. But just ere 
the minister must rise for the first prayer, he saw Gibbie, who 
had heard a feeble cough, cast a glance round, rise as swiftly 
as noiselessly, open the door of the pew, get out into the 
passage, take the old man by the hand, and lead him to his 
place beside the satin-robed and sable-muffed ministerial con- 
sort. Obedient to Gibbie’s will, the old man took the seat, 
with an air both of humility and respect, while happily for 
Mrs. Sclater’s remnant of ruffled composure, there was plenty 
of room in the pew, so that she could move higher up. The 
old man, it is true, followed, to make a place for Gibbie, but 
there was still an interval between them sufficient to afford 
space to the hope that none of the evils she dreaded would 
fall upon her to devour her. Flushed, angry, uncomfortable, 
notwithstanding, her face glowed like a bale-fire to the eyes of 
her husband, and, I fear, spoiled the prayer — but that did not 
matter much. 

While the two thus involuntarily signalled each other, the 
boy who had brought discomposure into both pulpit and pew 
sat peaceful as a summer morning, with the old man beside 
him quiet in the reverence of being himself revered. And 
the minister, while he preached from the words. Let him that 
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall^ for the first time in his 
life began to feel doubtful whether he might not himself be a 
humbug. There was not much fear cf his falling, however, 
for he had not yet stood on his feet. 

Not a word was said to Gibbie concerning the liberty he 
had taken : the minister and his wife were in too much dread 
— not of St. James and the “ poor man in vile raiment,” for 
they were harmless enough in themselves, but of Gibbie’s point- 
ing finger to back them. Three distinct precautions, how- 
ever, they took ; the pew-opener on that side was spoken to ; 
Mrs. Sclater made Gibbie henceforth go into the pew before 
her ; and she removed the New Testament from the drawing- 
room. 


NEEDFUL ODDS AND ENDS. 


315 


CHAPTER XLVIII. 


NEEDFUL ODDS AND ENDS. 


It will be plain from what I have told, that DonaPs imagi- 
nation was full of Ginevra, and his was not an economy 
whose imagination could enjoy itself without calling the heart 
to share. At the same time, his being in love, if already I 
may use concerning him that most general and most indefinite 
of phrases, so far from obstructing his study, was in reality an 
aid to his thinking and a spur to excellence — not excellence 
over others, hut over himself. There were moments, doubt- 
less long moments too, in which he forgot Homer and Cicero 
and differential calculus and chemistry, for “ the bonnie lady- 
lassie,” — that was what he called her to himself ; but it was 
only, on emerging from the reverie, to attack his work with 
fresh vigor. She was so young so plainly girlish, that as yet 
there was no room for dread or jealously ; the feeling in 
his heart was a kind of gentle angel-worship ; and he would 
have turned from the idea of marrying her, if indeed it had 
ever presented itself, as an irreverent thought which he dared 
not for a moment be guilty of entertaining. It was, besides, 
an idea too absurd to be indulged in by one who, in his wildest 
imaginations, always through every Protean embodiment, 
sought and loved and clung to the real. His chief thought 
was simply to find favor in the eyes of the girl. His ideas 
hovered about her image, but it was continually to burn 
themselves in incense to her sweet ladyhood. As often as a 
song came fluttering its wings at his casement, the next 
thought was Ginevra — and there would be something to give 
her ! I wonder how many loves of the poets have received 
their offerings in correspondent fervor. I doubt if Ginevra, 
though she read them with marvel, was capable of appreciat- 
ing the worth of DonaPs. She was hardly yet woman enough 
to do them justice ; for the heart of a girl in its very sweet- 
ness and vagueness, is ready to admire alike the good and the 
indifferent, if their outer qualities be similar. It would cause 
a collapse in many a swelling of poet’s heart if, while he heard 


SIR GIBBIE. 


316 

lovely lips commending his verses, a voice were to whisper in 
his ear what certain other verses the lady commended also. 

On Saturday evenings, after Gibbie left him, Donal kept 
his own private holiday, which consisted in making verses, 
or rather setting himself in the position for doing so, when 
sometimes verses would be the result, sometimes not. When 
the moon was shining in at the windows of the large room 
adjoining, he would put out his lamp, open his door, and 
look from the little chamber, glowing with fire-light, into the 
strange, eerie, silent waste, crowded with the chaos of dis- 
created homes. There scores on scores of things, many of them 
unco that is uncouth, the first meaning of w'hich is unknown, to 
his eyes, stood huddled together in the dim light. The 
light looked weary and faint, as if with having forced its way 
through the dust of years on the windows : and Donal felt as 
if gazing from a clear conscious present out into a faded 
dream. Sometimes he would leave his nest, and walk up 
and down among spider-legged tables, tall cabinets, secret- 
looking bureaus, worked chairs — yielding: himself to fancies. 
He was one who needed no opium, or such-like demon-help, 
to set him dreaming ; he could dream at his will — only his 
dreams were brief and of rapid change — probably not more 
so, after the clock, than those other artificial ones, in which 
to speculate on the testimony, the feeling of their length ap- 
pears to be produced by an infinite and continuous subdh 
vision of the subjective time. Now he was a ghost come back 
to flit, hovering and gliding about sad old scenes, that had 
gathered a new and a worse sadness from the drying up of 
the sorrow which was the heart of them — -his doom, to live 
thus over again the life he had made so little of in the body ; 
his punishment to haunt the world and pace its streets, un- 
able to influence by the turn of a hair the goings on of its life, 
— so to learn what a useless being he had been, and repent of 
his self-embraced insignificance. Now he was a prisoner pin- 
ing and longing for life and air and human companionship ; 
that was the sun outside, whose rays shone thus feebly into 
his dnngeon by repeated reflections. Now he was a prince 
in disguise, meditating how to appear again and defeat the 
machinations of his foes, especially of the enchanter who 
made him seem to the eyes of his subjects that which he was 
not. But ever his thoughts would turn again to Ginevra, and 
ever the poems he devised were devised as in her presence and 
for her hearing. Sometimes a dread would seize him — as if 
the strange things were all looking at him, and something 
was about to happen ; then he would stride hastily back to 


NEEDFUL ODDS AND ENDS. 


317 


his own room, close the door hurriedly, and sit down by the 
fire. Once or twice he was startled by the soft entrance of his 
landlady’s grand-daughter, come to search for something in 
one of the cabinets they had made a repository for small odds 
and ends of things. Once he had told Gibbie that something 
had looked at him, but he could not tell what or whence 
or how, and laughed at himself, but persisted in his state- 
ment. 

He had not yet begun to read his New Testament in the 
way Gibbie did, but he thought in the direction of light and 
freedom, and looked towards some goal dimly seen in vague 
grandeur of betterness. His condition was rather that of eye- 
less hunger after growth, than of any conscious aspiration 
towards less undefined good. He had a large and increas- 
ing delight in all forms of the generous, and shrunk instinc- 
tively from the base, but had not yet concentrated his elforts 
towards becoming that which he acknowledged the best, so 
that he was hardly yet on the straight path to the goal of such 
oneness with good as alone is a man’s peace. I mention 
these things not with the intent of here developing the char- 
acter of Donal, but with the desire that my readers should 
know him such as he then was. 

Gibbie and he seldom talked about Ginevra She was 
generally understood between them — only referred to upon 
needful occasion : they had no right to talk about her, any 
more than to intrude on her presence unseasonably. 

Donal went to Mr. Sclater’s church because Mr. Sclater 
required it, in virtue of the position he assumed as his bene- 
factor. Mr. Sclater in the pulpit was a trial to Donal, but it 
consoled him to be near Gibbie, also that he found a seat in 
the opposite gallery, whence he could see Ginevra when her 
place happened to be not far from the door of one of the 
school-pews. He did not get much benefit from Mr. Scla- 
ter’s sermons : I confess he did not attend very closely to his 
preaching — often directed against doctrinal errors of which, 
except from himself, not one of his congregration had ever 
heard, or was likely ever to hear. But I cannot say he would 
have been better employed in listening, for there was gener- 
ally something going on in his mind that had to go on, and 
make way for more. I have said generally, for I must except 
the times when his thoughts turned upon the preacher him- 
self, and took forms such as the following. But it might be 
a lesson to some preachers to ^know that a decent lad like 
Donal may be making some such verses about one of them 
while he is preaching. I have known not a few humble men 


SIR GIBBIE. 


318 

in the pulpit of whom rather than write such a thing Donal 
would have lost the writing hand. 

’Twas a sair sair day ’twas my hap till 
Come under yer soon’, Mr. Sclater ; 

But things maun be putten a stap till, 

An’ sae maun ye, seener or later ! 

For to hear ye rowtin’ an’ scornin’, 

Is no to hark to the river ; 

An’ to sit here till brak trowth’s mornin’, 

Wad be to be lost for ever. 

I confess I have taken a liberty, and changed one word for 
another in the last line. He did not show these verses to 
Gibbie ; or indeed ever find much fault with the preacher in 
his hearing ; for he knew that while he was himself more 
open-minded to the nonsense of the professional gentleman, 
Gibbie was more open-hearted towards the merits of the man, 
with whom he was far too closely associated on week-days 
not to feel affection for him ; while, on the other hand, Gib- 
bie made neither head nor tail of his sermons, not having 
been instructed in the theological mess that goes with so 
many for a theriac of the very essentials ot religion ; and 
therefore, for anything he knew, they might be very wise and 
good. At first he took refuge from the sermon in his New 
Testament : but when, for the third time, the beautiful hand 
of the ministerial spouse appeared between him and the book, 
and gently withdrew it, he saw that his reading was an 
offence in her eyes, and contented himself thereafter with 
thinkmg : listening to the absolutely unintelligible he found 
impossible. What a delight it would have been to the boy 
to hear Christ preached such as he showed himself, such as 
in no small measure he had learned him — instead of such as 
Mr. Sclater saw him reflected from the tenth or twentieth dis- 
torting mirror ! They who speak against the Son of Man 
oppose mere distortions and mistakes of him, having never 
beheld, neither being now capable of beholding him ; but 
those who have transmitted to them these false impressions, 
those, namely, who preach him without being themselves 
devoted to him, and those who preach him having derived 
their notions of him from other sources than himself, have to 
bear the blame that they have such excuses for not seeking to 
know him. He submits to be mis-preached, as he submitted 
to be lied against while visibly walking the world, but his 
truth will appear at length to all ; until then until he is 
known as he is, our salvation tarrieth. 


NEEDFUL ODDS AND ENDS. 


319 

Mrs. Sclater showed herself sincere, after her kind, to 
Donal as well as to Gibbie. She had by no means ceased to 
grow, and already was slowly bettering under the influences 
of the New Testament in Gibbie, notwithstanding she had re- 
moved the letter of it from her public table. She told Gib- 
bie that he must talk to Donal about his dress and his speech. 
That he was a lad of no common gifts was plain, she said, 
but were he ever so “talented” he could do little in the 
world, certainly would never raise himself, so long as he 
dressed and spoke ridiculously. The wisest and best of men 
would be utterly disregarded, she said, if he did not look and 
speak like other people. Gibbie thought with himself this 
could hardly hold, for there was John the Baptist ; he 
answered her, however, that Donal could speak very good 
English if he chose, but that the affected tone and would-be- 
fine pronunciation of Fergus Duff had given him the notion 
that to speak anything but his mother-tongue would be un- 
manly and false. As to his dress, Donal was poor, Gibbie 
said, and could not give up wearing any clothes so long as 
there was any wear in them. ‘ ‘ If you had seen me once ! ” 
he added, with a merry laugh to finish for his fingers. 

Mrs. Sclater spoke to her husband, who said to Gibbie that, 
if he chose to provide Donal with suitable garments, he 
would advance him the money : — that was the way he took 
credit for every little sum he handed his ward, but in his 
accounts was correct to a farthing. 

Gibbie would thereupon have dragged Donal at once to 
the tailor ; but Donal was obstinate. 

“Na, na,” he said ; “ the claes is guid eneuch for him ’at 
weirs them. Ye dee eneuch for me. Sir Gilbert, a’ready ; an’ 
though I wad be obleeged to you as I wad to my mither her- 
sel’, to deed me gien I warna dacent, I winna tak your siller 
nor naebody ither’s to gang fine. Na, na ; I’ll weir the claes 
oot, an’ we s’ dee better wi’ the neist. An* for that bonnie 
wuman, Mistress Sclater, ye can tell her, ’at by the time I hae 
onything to say to the warl’, it winna be my claes ’at’ll hand 
fowk ohn hearkent ; an’ gien she considers them ’at I hae 
noo, ower sair a disgrace till her gran’ rooms, she maun jist 
no inveet me, an’ I’ll no come ; for I canna presently help 
them. But the neist session, whan I hae better, for I’m sure 
to get wark eneuch in atween, I’ll come an’ shaw mysel’, an’ 
syne she can dee as she likes. ” 

This high tone of liberty, so free from offence either given 
or taken, was thoroughly appreciated by both Mr. and Mrs. 
Sclater, and they- did not cease to invite him. A Iktle "talk 


320 


SIR GIBBIE. 


with the latter soon convinced him that there was neither 
assumption nor lack of patriotism in speaking the language 
of the people among whom he found himself, and as he made 
her his model in the pursuit of the accomplishment, he very 
soon spoke a good deal better English than Mr. Sclater. But 
with Gibbie, and even with the dainty Ginevra, he could not 
yet bring himself to talk anything but his mother-tongue. 

“I cannot mak my mooV’ he would say, “to speyk ony- 
thing but the nat’ral tongue o’ poetry till sic a bonnie cratur 
as Miss Galbraith ; an’ for ycrsel’, Gibbie — man ! I wad be 
ill willin’ to bigg a stane wa’ atween me an’ the bonnie days 
when Angus Mac Pholp was the deil we did fear, an’ Hornie 
the deil we didna. Losh, man ! what wad come o’ me gien 
I hed to say my prayers in English ! I doobt gien ’t wad come 
oot prayin’ at a’ ! ” 

I am well aware that most Scotch people of that date tried 
to say their prayers in English, but not so Janet or Robert, 
and not so had they taught their children, I fancy not a little 
unreality was thus in their case avoided. 

“What will you do when you are a minister.?” asked 
Gibbie on his fingers. 

“Me a minnister ? ” echoed Donal. “ Me a minnister ! ” 
he repeated. “Losh, man! gien I can save my ain sowl, 
it’ll be a’ ’at I’m fit for, ohn lo’dent it wi’ a haill congregation 
o’ ither fowk’s. Na, na ; gien I can be a schuilmaister, an’ 
help the bairnies to be guid, as my mither taucht mysel’, an’ 
hae time to read, an’ a feow shillin’s to buy buiks aboot 
Aigypt an’ the Holy Lan’, an’ a full an’ complete edition o’ 
Plato, an’ a Greek Lexicon — a guid ane, an’ a Jamieson’s 
Dictionar’, haith. I’ll be a hawpy man 1 — An’ gien I dinna 
like the schuilmaisterin’, I can jist tak to the wark again^ 
whilk I cudna dee sae weel gien I had tried the preachin’ : 
fowk wad ca’ me a stickit minister 1 Or maybe they’ll gie me 
the sheep to luik efter upo’ Glashgar, whan they’re ower 
muckle for my father, an’ that wad weel content me. Only 
I wad hae to bigg a bit mair to the hoosie, to baud my buiks : 
I maun hae buiks. I wad get the newspapers whiles, but no 
aften, for they’re a sair loss o’ precious time. Ye see they 
tell ye things afore they’re sure, an’ ye hae to spen’ yer time 
the day readin’ what ye’ll hae to spen’ yer time the morn 
readin’ oot again ; an’ ye may as weel bide till the thing’s 
sattled a wee. I wad jist lat them fecht things oot ’at thoucht 
they saw hoo they oucht to gang ; an’ I wad gie them guid 
mutton to haed them up to their dreary wark, an’ maybe a 
sangynooan’ than ’at wad help them to drap it a’thegither. ” 


NEEDFUL ODDS AND ENDS. 321 

*^But would nt you like to have a wife, Donal, and chil- 
dren, like your father and mother ? ” spelt Gibbie. 

“ Na, na ; nae wife for me, Gibbie ! ’ answered the philoso- 
pher. “ Wha wad hae aither a pure schuilmaister or a shep- 
herd ? — ’cep’ it was maybe some lass like my sister Nicie, ’at 
wadna ken Euclid frae her hose, or Burns frae a mill-dam, or 
conic sections frae the hole i’ the great peeramid.” 

“I don’t like to hear you talk like that, Donal, ’’said Gib- 
bie. ‘‘ What do you say to mother?” 

“The mither’s no to be said aboot,” answered Donal. 

“ She’s ane by hersel’, no ane like ither fowk. Ye wadna 
think waur o’ the angel Gabriel ’at he hedna jist read Homer 
clean throu’, wad ye ? ” 

“ If I did,” answered Gibbie, “he would only tell me there 
was time enough for that. 

When they met on Friday evening, and it was fine, they 
would rove the streets, Gibbie taking Donal to the places he 
knew so well in his childhood, and enjoying it the more that 
he could now tell him so much better what he remembered. 
The only place he did not take him to was Jink Lane, with 
the house that had been Mistress Croale’s. He did take him 
to the court in the Widdiehill, and show him the Auld Hoose 
o’ Galbraith, and the place under the stair where his father 
had worked. The shed was now gone ; the neighbors had 
by degrees carried it away for firewood. The house was 
occupied still as then by a number of poor people, and the 
door was never locked, day or night, any more than when 
Gibbie nsed to bring his father home. He took Donal to 
the garret where they had slept — one could hardly say lived, 
and where his father died. The door stood open, and the 
place was just as they had left it. A year or two after, Gibbie 
learned how it came to be thus untenanted ; it was said to be 
haunted. Every Sunday Sir George was heard at work, 
making boots for his wee Gibbie from morning to night ; 
after which, when it was dark, came dreadful sounds of 
supplication, as of a soul praying in hell-fire. For a while 
the house was almost deserted in consequence. 

“Gien I was you. Sir Gilbert,” said Donal, who now and 
then remembered Mrs. Sclater’s request — they had come 
down, and looking at the outside of the house, had espied a 
half-obliterated stone-carving of the Galbraith arms — “Gien 
I was you. Sir Gilbert, I wad gar Maister Scletter keep a 
sherp luik oot for the first chance o buyin’ back this hoose. 
It wad be a great peety it sud gang to waur afore ye get it, 
Eh ! sic tales as this hoose cud tell ! ” 


322 


SIR GIBBIE. 


How am I to do that, Donal ? Mr. Sclater would not 
mind me. The money’s not mine yet, you know,” said Gib- 
bie. 

‘^The siller /sj^ours, Gibbie, ” answered Donal ; “its yours 
as the kingdom o’ h’aven’s yours ; it’s only ’at ye canna jist 
lay yer ban’s upo’ ’t yet. The seener ye lat that Maister 
Scletter ken ’at ye ken what ye’re aboot, the better. An’ 
believe me, whan he comes to un’erstan’ ’at ye w'ant that 
hoose koft, he’ll no be a day ohn gane to somebody or 
anither aboot it.” 

Donal was right, for within a month the house was bought 
and certain nesessary repairs commenced. 

Sometimes on those evenings they took tea with Mistress 
Croale, and it was a proud time with her when they went. 
That night at least the whiskey bottle did not make its 
appearance. 

Mrs. Sclater continued to invite young ladies to the house 
for Gibbie’s sake, and when she gave a party, she took care 
there should be a portion of young people in it ; but Gibbie, 
although kind and polite to all, did not much enjoy these 
gatherings. It began to trouble him a little that he seemed 
to care less for his kind than before ; but it was only a seem- 
ing, and the cause of it was this : he was now capable of per- 
ceiving facts in nature and character ^which prevented real 
contract, and must make advances towards it appear as 
offensive as they were useless. But he did not love the less 
that he had to content himself, until the kingdom should 
come nearer, with loving at a more conscious distance ; by 
loving kindness and truth he continued doing all he could 
to bring the kingdom whose end is unity. Hence he had 
come to restrain his manner — nothing could have con- 
strained his manners, which now from the conventional 
point of view were irreproachable ; but if he did not so 
often execute a wild dance, or stand upon one leg, the glow 
in his eyes had deepened, and his response to any advance 
was as ready and thorough, as frank and sweet as ever ; his 
eagerness was replaced by a stillness from which his eyes 
took all coldness, and his smile was as the sun breaking out 
in a gray day of summer, and turning all from doves to pea- 
cocks. In this matter there was one thing worthy of note 
common to Donal and him, who had had the same divine 
teaching from Janet : their manners to all classes were the 
same, they showed the same respect to the poor, the same 
ease with the rich. 

I must confess, however, that before the session was over 


NEEDFUL ODDS AND ENDS. 


323 


Donal found it required all his strength of mind to continue 
to go to Mrs. Sclater’s little parties — from kindness she never 
asked him to her larger ones ; and the more to his praise it 
was that he did not refuse one of her invitations. The cause 
was this : one bright Sunday morning in February, coming 
out of his room to go to church, and walking down the path 
through the furniture in a dreamy mood, he suddenly saw a 
person meeting him straight in the face. “ Sic a queer-like 
chield ! '' he remarked inwardly, stepped on one side to let 
him pass — and perceived it was himself reflected from head 
to foot in a large mirror, which had been placed while he was 
out the night before. The courage with which he persisted, 
after such a painful enlightenment, in going into company in 
those same garments, was right admirable and enviable : but 
no one knew of it until its exercise was long over. 

The little pocket money Mr. Sclater allowed Gibbie, was 
chiefly spent at the shop of a certain secondhand bookseller, 
nearly opposite Mistress Murkinson’s. • The books they 
bought were carried to Donahs room, there to be considered 
by Gibbie Donahs, and by Donal Gibbie's. Among the rest 
was a reprint of Marlow’s Fause, the daring in the one grand 
passage of which both awed and delighted them ; there were 
also some of the Ettrick Shepherd’s eerie stories, alone in 
their kind ; and above all there was a miniature copy of 
Shelley, whose verse did much for the music of Donahs, 
while yet he could not quite appreciate the truth for the 
iridescence of it : he said it seemed to him to have been all 
composed in a balloon. I have mentioned only works of 
imagination, but it must not be supposed they had not a 
relish for stronger food : the books more severe came after- 
wards, when they had liberty to choose their own labors ; now 
they had plenty of the harder work provided for them. 

Somewhere about this time Fergus Duff received his license 
to preach, and set himself to acquire what his soul thirsted 
after — a reputation, namely, for eloquence. This was all the 
floodmark that remained of the waters of verse with which he 
had at onetime so plentifully inundated his soul. He was the 
same as man he had been as youth — handsome, plausible, oc- 
cupied with himself, determined to succeed, not determined 
to labor. Praise was the very necessity of his existence, but 
he had the instinct not to display his beggarly hunger — which 
reached even to the approbation of such to whom he held 
himself vastly superior. He seemed generous, and was 
niggardly, by turns ; cultivated suavity ; indulged in floridity 
both of manners and speech ; and signed his name sc as 


324 


■ SIR GIBBIE. 


nobody could read it, though his hand writing was plain 
enough. 

In the spring, summer and autumn, Donal labored all day 
with his body, and in the evening as much as he could with 
his mind. Lover of Nature as he was, however, more alive 
indeed than before to the delights of the country, and the 
genial companionship of terrene sights and sounds, scents and 
notions, he could not help longing for the winter and the 
city, that his soul might be freer to follow its paths. And yet 
what a season some of the labors of the field aflfored him 
for thought ! To the student who cannot think without 
books, the easiest of such labors are a dull burden, or a dis- 
tress ; but for the man in whom the wells have been unsealed, 
in whom the waters are flowing, the labor mingles gently and 
genially with the thought, and the plough he holds with his 
hands lays open to the sun and the air more soils than one. 
Mr. Sclater without his books would speedily have sunk into 
the mere shrewed farmer ; Donal, never opening a book, 
would have followed theories and made verses to the end of 
his days. 

Every Saturday, as before, he went to see his father and 
mother. Janet kept fresh and lively, although age told on 
her, she said, more rapidly since Gibbie went away. 

“ But gien the Lord lat auld age wither me up,” she said, 
‘‘he’ll luik efter the cracks himsel.’ ” 

Six weeks of every summer between Donal’s sessions, while 
the minister and his wife took their holiday, Gibbie spent 
with Robert and Janet. It was a blessed time for them all. 
He led then just the life of the former days, with Robert and 
Oscar and the sheep, and Janet and her cow and the New 
Testament — only he had a good many more things to think 
about now, and more ways of thinking about them. With 
his own hands he built a neat little porch to the cottage door, 
with close sides and a second door to keep the wind off : 
Donal and he carried up the timber and the mortar. But al- 
though he tried hard to make Janet say what he could do for 
her more, he could not bring her to reveal any desire that 
belonged to this world — except, indeed, for two or three 
trifles for her husband’s warmth and convenience. 

“The sicht o’ my Lord’s face,” she said once, when he was 
pressing her, “ is a’ ’at I want. Sir Gibbie. For this life it jist 
blecks me to think o’ onything I wad hae or wad lowse. 
This boady o’ mine’s growin’ some heavy like, I maun con- 
fess, but I wadna hae’t ta’en aff o’ me afore the time. It wad 
be an ill thing for the seed to be shaft ower sune.” 


THE HOUSELESS. 


325 


They almost always called him Sir Gihhie, and he never 
objected, or seemed either annoyed or amused at it ? he took 
it just as the name that was his, the same way as his hair or 
his hands were his ; he had been called wee Sir Gibbie for so 
long. 


CHAPTER XLIX. 

THE HOUSELESS. 

The minister kept Gibbie hard at work, and by the time 
Donal's last winter came, Gibbie was ready for college also. 
To please Mr. Sclater he competed for a bursary, and gained 
a tolerably good one, but declined accepting it. His guardian 
was annoyed, he could not see why he should refuse 
what he had “earned.'' Gibbie asked him whether it was 
the design of the founder of those bursaries that rich boys 
should have them. Were they not for the like of Donal.? 
Whereupon Mr. Sclater could not help remembering what a 
difference it would have made to him in his early struggles, 
if some rich bursar above him had yielded a place — and held 
his peace. 

Daur-street being too far from Elphinstone College for a 
student to live there, Mr. Sclater consented to Gibbie’s lodg- 
ing with Donal, but would have insisted on their taking 
rooms in some part of the town — more suitable to the young 
baronet's position, he said ; but as there was another room to 
be had at Mistress Murkison's, Gibbie insisted that one who 
had shown them so much kindness must not be forsaken ; 
and by this time he seldom found difficulty in having his way 
with his guardian. Both he and his wife had come to under- 
stand him better, and nobody could understand Gibbie bet- 
ter without also understanding better all that was good and 
true and right : although they hardly knew the fact them- 
selves the standard of both of them had been heightened by 
not a few degrees since Gibbie came to them ; and although 
he ceased to take direct notice of what in their conduct dis- 
tressed him, I cannot help thinking it was not amiss that he 
uttered himself as he did at the first ; knowing a little his 
ways of thinking they came to feel his judgment unexpressed. 
For Mrs. Sclater, when she bethought herself that she had 
said or done something he must count wordly, the very 
silence of the dumb boy was a reproof to her. 


SIR GIBBIE. 


326 

One night the youths had been out for a long walk and 
came back to the city late, after the shops were shut. Only 
here and there a light glimmered in some low-browed little 
place, probably used in part by the family. Not a soul was 
visible in the dingy region through w'hich they now ap- 
proached their lodging, when round a corner, moving like a 
shadow, came, soft-pacing, a ghostly woman in rags, with a 
white, worn face, and the largest black eyes, it seemed to the 
youths that they had ever seen — an apparition of awe and 
grief and wonder. To compare a great thing to a small, she 
was to their eyes as a ruined, desecrated shrine to the eyes of 
the saint’s own peculiar worshipper. I may compare her to 
what I please, great or small — to a sapphire set in tin, to an 
angel with draggled feathers ; for far beyond all comparison 
is that temple of the holy ghost in the desert — a woman in 
wretchedness and rags. She carried her puny baby rolled 
hard in the corner of her scrap of black shawl. To the 
youths a sea of trouble looked out of those wild eyes. As 
she. drew near them, she hesitated, half-stopped, and put out 
a hand from under the shawl — stretched out no arm, held 
out only a hand from the wrist, white against the night. 
Donal had no money. Gibbie had a shilling. The hand 
closed upon it, a gleam crossed the sad face, and a murmur 
of thanks fluttered from the thin lips as she walked on her 
way. The youths breathed deep, and felt a little relieved, 
but only a little. The thought of the woman wandering in 
the dark and the fog and the night, was a sickness at their 
hearts. Was it impossible to gather such under the wings of 
any night-brooding hen ? That Gibbie had gone through so 
much of the same kind of thing himself, and had found it 
endurable enough, did not make her case a whit the less piti- 
ful in his eyes, and indeed it was widely, sadly different from 
his. Along the deserted street, which looked to Donal like 
a waterless canal banked by mounds of death, and lighted by 
phosphorescent grave-damps, they followed her with their 
eyes, the one living thing, fading away from lamp to lamp ; 
and when they could see her no farther, followed her with 
their feet ; they could not bear to lose sight of her. But they 
kept just on the verge of vision, for they did not want her to 
to know the espial of their love. Suddenly she disappeared 
and keeping their eyes on the spot as well as they coul^ they 
found when they reached it a little shop, with a red curtain, 
half torn down, across the glass door of it. A dim oil lamp 
was burning within. It looked like a rag-shop, dirty and 
dreadful. There she stood, while a woman with a bloated 


THE HOUSELESS. 


327 


face, looking to Donal like a feeder of hell-swine, took from 
some secret hole underneath, a bottle which seemed to Gib- 
bie the very one his father used to drink from. He would 
have rushed in and dashed it from her hand, but Donal with- 
held him. 

“Hoots!” he said, “we canna follow her a' nicht; an’ 
gien we did, what better wad she be i’ the mornm’ ? Lat her 
be, puir thing 1 ” 

She received the whiskey in a broken tea-cup, swallowed 
some of it eagerly, then, to the horror of the youths, put 
some of it into the mouth of her child from her own. Drain- 
ing the last drops from the cup, she set it quietly down, 
turned, and without a word spoken, for she had paid before- 
hand, came out, her face looking just as white and thin as 
before, but having another expression in the eyes of it. At 
the sight Donal’s wisdom forsook him. 

“Eh, wuman”he cried, “yon wasna what ye hed the 
shillin for 1” 

“Ye said naething,” answered the poor creature, humbly, 
and walked on, hanging her head, and pressing her baby to 
her bosom. 

The boys looked at each other. 

“That wasna the gait yer shillin’ sud hae gane, Gibbie,” 
said Donal. “ It’s clear it winna dee to gie shillin’s to sic 
like as her. Wha kensibut the hunger an’ the caul’, an’ the 
want o’ whiskey may be the wumen’s evil things here, ’at she 
may ’scape the hell-fire o’ tbe Rich Man hereafter?” 

He stopped, for Gibbie was weeping. The woman and 
her child he would have taken to his very heart, and could 
do nothing for them. Love seemed helpless, for money was 
useless. It set him thinking much, and the result appeared. 
From that hour the case of the homeless haunted his heart 
and brain and imagination ; and as his natural affections 
found themselves repelled and chilled in what is called 
Society, they took refuge more and more with the houseless 
and hungry and shivering. Through them, also, he now, 
for the first time, began to find grave and troublous questions 
mingling with his faith and hope ; so that already he began 
to be rewarded for his love : to the true heart every doubt is 
a door. I will not follow and describe the opening of these 
doors to Gibbie, but, as what he discovered found always its 
first utterance in action, wait until I can show the result. 

For the time the youths were again a little relieved about 
the woman : followed her still, to a yet more wretched part 
of the city, they saw her knock at a door, pay something, and 


SIR GIBBIE. 


328 

be admitted. It looked a dreadful refuge, but she was at least 
under cover, and shelter, in such a climate as ours in winter, 
must be the first rudimentary notion of salvation. No longer 
haunted with the idea of her wandering all night about the 
comfortless streets, “like a ghost awake in Memphis,'" Donal 
said, they went home. But it was long before they got to 
sleep, and in the morning their first words were about the 
woman. 

“ Gien only we hed my mither here !” said Donal. 

“Mightn’t you try Mr. Sclater?" suggested Gibbie. 

Donal answered with a great roar of laughter. 

“He wad tell her she oucht to tak shame till hersel',” he 
said, “ an' I’m thinkin' she’ lang brunt a' her stock o’ that 
firn’. He wud tell her she sud work for her livin’, an"* maybe 
there isna ae turn the puir thing can dee 'at onybody wad gie 
her a bawbee for a day o’ ! But what say ye to takin’ advice 
o’ Miss Galbraith ?” 

It was strange how, wdth the marked distinctions between 
them, Donal and Gibbie would every now and then, like the 
daughters of the Vicar of Wakefield, seem to change places 
and parts. 

“God can make praise-pipes of babes and sucklings,” 
answered Gibbie ; “ but it does not follow that they can give 
advice. Don’t you remember your mother saying that the 
stripling David was enough to kill a braggart giant, but a 
sore-tried man was wanted to rule the people ?” 

It ended in their going to Mistress Croale. They did not 
lay bare to her their perplexities, but they asked her to find 
out who the woman was, and see if anything could be done 
for her. They said to themselves she would know the con- 
dition of such a woman, and what would be moving in her 
mind, after the experience she had herself had, better at least 
than the minister or his lady-wife. Nor were they disappointed. 
To be thus taken into counsel revived for Mistress Croale the 
time of her dignity while yet she shepherded her little flock 
of drunkards. She undertook the task with the hearty good- 
will, and carried it out with some success. Its reaction on 
herselt to her own good was remarkable. There can be no 
better auxiliary against our own sins than to help our neigh- 
bor in the encounter with his. Merely to contemplate our 
neighbor will recoil upon us in quite another way : we shall 
see his. faults so black, that we will not consent to believe 
ours so bad, and will immediately begin to excuse, which is 
the same as to cherish them, instead of casting them from us 
with abhorrence. 


A WALK. 


329 


One day early in the session, as the youths were approach- 
ing the gate of Miss Kimble’s school, a thin, care-worn man, 
in shabby clothes, came out, and walked along meeting them. 
Every now and then he bowed his shoulders, as if something 
invisible had leaped upon them from behind, and as often 
seemed to throw it off and with effort walk erect. It was the 
laird. They lifted their caps, but in return he only stared 
or rather tried to stare, for his eyes seemed able to fix them- 
selves on nothing. He was now at length a thoroughly 
ruined man, and had come to the city to end his days in a 
cottage belonging to his daughter. Already Mr. Sclater, who 
was unweariedly on the watch over the material interests of 
his ward, had, through his lawyer, and without permitting 
his name to appear, purchased the whole of the Glashruach 
property. For the present, however, he kept Sir Gilbert in 
ignorance of the fact. 


CHAPTER L. 

A WALK. 

The cottage to which Mr. Galbraith had taken Ginevra, 
stood in a suburban street — one of those small, well-built 
stone houses common, I fancy, throughout Scotland, with 
three rooms and a kitchen on its one floor, and a large attic 
with dormer windows. It was low and wide-roofed, and had 
a tiny garden between it and the quiet street. This garden 
was full of flowers in summer and autumn, but the tops of a 
few gaunt stems of hollyhocks, and the wiry straggling 
creepers of the honeysuckle about the eaves, was all that now 
showed from the pavement. It had a dwarf wall of granite, 
with an iron railing on the top, through which, in the season, 
its glorious colors used to attract many eyes, but Mr. Galbraith 
had had the railing and the gate lined to the very spikes with 
boards : the first day of his abode he had discovered that the 
passers-by — not to say those who stood to stare admiringly at 
the flowers, came much too near his faded but none the less 
conscious dignity. Pie had also put a lock on the gate, and 
so made of the garden a sort of propylon to the house. For 
he had of late developed a tendency towards taking to earth, 
like the creatures that seem to have been created ashamed of 
themselves, and are always burrowing. But it was not that 


330 


SIR GIBBIE. 


the late laird was ashamed of himself in any proper sense. 
Of the dishonesty of his doings he was as yet scarcely half 
conscious, for the proud man shrinks from repentance, regard- 
ing it as disgrace. To wash is to acknowledge the need of 
washing. He avoided the eyes of men for the mean reason 
that he could no longer appear in dignity as laird of Glash- 
ruach and chairman of a grand company ; while he ^elt as if 
something must have gone wrong with the laws of nature 
that it had become possible for Thomas Galbraith, of Glash- 
ruach. Esq., to live in a dumpy cottage. He had thought . 
seriously of resuming his patronymic of Durrant, but reflected 
that he was too well known to don that cloak of transparent 
darkness without giving currency to the idea that he had 
soiled the other past longer wearing. It would be imagined 
he said, picking out one dishonesty of wdiich he had not 
been guilty, that he had settled money on his wife, and 
retired to enjoy it. 

His condition was far more pitiful than his situation. 
Having no faculty for mental occupation except with affairs, 
finding nothing to do but cleave, like a spent sailor, wdth 
hands and feet to the slippery rock of what was once his 
rectitude, such as it was, trying to hold it still his own, he 
would sit for hours without moving — a perfect creature, 
temple, god, and worshipper, all in one — only that the 
worshipper was hardly content with his god, and that a worm 
was gnawdng on at the foundation of the temple. Nearly as 
motionless, her hands excepted, would Ginevra sit opposite 
to him, not quieter but more peaceful than when a girl, partly 
because now she was less afraid of him. He called her, in 
his thoughts as he sat there, heartless and cold, but not only 
was she not so, but it was his fault that she appeared to him 
such. In his moral stupidity he would rather have seen her 
manifest concern at the poverty to which he had reduced her, 
than show the stillness of a contented mind. She was not 
much given to books, but what she read was worth reading, 
and such as turned into thought while she sat. They are not 
the best students who are most dependent on books. What 
can be got out of them is at best only material : a man must 
build his house for hims'elf She would have read more, but 
with her father beside her doing nothing, she felt that to take 
a book would be like going into a warm house, and leaving 
him out in the cold. It was very sad to her to see him thus 
shrunk and withered, and lost in thought that plainly was not 
thinking. Nothing interested him ; he never looked at the 
papers, never cared to hear a word of news. His eyes more 


A WALK. 


331 


tir.steady, his lips looser, his neck thinner and long here 
looked more than ever like a puppet whose strings hung slack. 
How often would Ginevra have cast herself on his bosom if 
she could have even hoped he would not repel her ! Now and 
then his eyes did wander to her in a dazed sort of animal-like 
appeal, but the moment she attempted response, he turned 
into a corpse. Still, when it came, that look was a comfort, 
for it seemed to witness some bond between them after all 
And another comfort was, that now, in his misery, she was 
able, if not to forget those painful thoughts about him which 
had all these years haunted her, at least to dismiss them 
when they came, in the hope that, as already such a change 
had passed upon him, further and better change might follow. 

She was still the same brown bird as of. old — a bird of the 
twilight, or rather a twilight itself, with a whole night of stars 
behind it, of whose existence she scarcely knew, having but 
just started on the voyage of discovery which life is. She 
had the sweetest, rarest smile — not frequent and flashing like 
Gibbie’s, but stealing up from below, like the shadowy reflec- 
tion of a greater light, gently deepening, penetrating her 
countenance until it reached her eyes, thence issuing in 
soft flame. Always however, as soon as her eyes began to 
glow duskily, down went their lids, and down dropt her head 
like the frond of a sensitive plant. Her atmosphere was an 
embodied stillness ; she made a quiet wherever she entered ; 
she was not beautiful, but she was lovely ; and her presence 
at once made a place such as one would desire to be in. 

The most pleasant of her thoughts were of necessity those 
with which the two youths were associated. How dreary but 
for them and theirs would the retrospect of her life have been ! 
Several times every winter they had met at the minister’s, and 
every summer- she had again and again seen Gibbie with Mrs. 
Sclater, and once or twice had had a walk with them, and 
every time Gibbie had something of Donahs to give her. 
Twice Gibbie had gone to see her at the school, but the second 
time she asked him not to come again, as Miss Kimble did 
not like it He gave a big stare of wonder, and thought of 
Angus and the laird ; but followed the stare with a swift 
smile, for he saw she was troubled, and asked no questions, 
but waited for the understanding of all things that must 
come. But now, when or where was she ever to see them, 
more ? Gibbie was no longer at the minister’s and perhaps 
she would never be invited to meet them there apin. She 
dared not ask Donal to. call ; her father would be indignant ; 
and for her father’s sake she would not ask Gibbie'; it might 


332 


SIR GIBBIE. 


give him pain ; while the thought that he would of a certainty 
behave so differently to him now that he was well-dressed, and 
mannered like a gentleman, and was almost more unendura- 
ble to her then the memory of the past treatment of him. 

Mr. and Mrs. Sclater had called upon them the moment they 
were settled in the cottage ; but Mr. Galbraith would see 
nobody. When the gate-bell rang, he always looked out, and 
if a visitor appeared, withdrew to his bedroom. 

One brilliant Saturday morning, the second in the session, 
the ground hard with an early frost, the filmy ice making fairy 
caverns and grottos in the cart-ruts, and the air so condensed 
with cold that every breath, to those who ate and slept well, 
had the life of two, Mrs. Sclater rang the said bell. Mr. 
Galbraith peeping from the window, saw a lady’s bonnet, and 
went. She walked in followed by Gibbie, and would have 
Ginevra go with them for a long walk. Pleased enough with 
the proposal, for the outsides of life had been dull as well as 
painful of late, she went and asked her father. If she did not 
tell him that Sir Gilbert was with ]\Irs. Sclater, perhaps she 
ought to have told him ; but I am not sure, and therefore am 
not going to blame her. When parents are not fathers and 
mothers, but something that has no name in the kingdom of 
heaven, they place the purest and the most honest of daugh- 
ters in the midst of perplexities. 

“Why do you ask me?” returnea her father. “My 
wishes are nothing to any one now ; to you they never were 
anything. ” 

“ I will stay at home if you wish it papa, — with pleasure, 
she replied, as cheerfully as she could after such a reproach. 

“By no means. If you do I shall go and dine at the Red 
Hart,” he answered — not having money enough in his pos- 
session to pay for a dinner there. 

I fancy he meant to be kind, but like not a few, alas ! took 
no pains to look as kind as he was. There are many, however, 
who seem to delight in planting a sting where conscience or 
heart will not let them deny. It made her miserable forawhile 
of course, but she had got so used to his way of breaking a 
gift as he handed it, that she answered only with a sigh. When 
she was a child, his ungraciousness had power to darken the 
sunlight, but by repetition it had lost force. In haste she put 
on her little brown-ribboned bonnet, took the moth-eaten 
muff that had been her mother’s and rejoined Mrs. Sclater and 
Gibbie, beaming with troubled pleasure. Life in her was 
strong, and their society soon enabled her to forget, not her 
father’s sadness, but his treatment of her. 


A WALK. 


333 


At the end of the street, they found Donal waiting them — 
without greatcoat or muffler, the picture of such health as 
suffices to its own warmth, not a mark of the midnight stu- 
dent about him, and looking very different, in town-made 
clothes, from the Donal of the mirror. He approached and 
saluted her with such an air of homely grace as one might 
imagine that of the Red Cross Knight, when having just put 
on the armour of a Christian man, from a clownish fellow he 
straightway appeared the goodliest knight in the company. 
Away they walked together westward, then turned southward 
Mrs. Sclater and Gibbie led, and Ginevra followed with Donal 
And they had not walked far, before something of the de- 
light of old times on Glashurach began to revive in the bosom 
of the too sober girl. In vain she reminded herself that her 
father sat miserable at home, thinking of her probably as the 
most heartless of girls ; the sun and the bright air like 
wine in her veins, were too much for her, Donal had soon 
made her cheerful, and now and then she answered his 
talk with even a little flash of merriment. They crossed the 
bridge, hung-high over the Daur, by which on that black 
morning Gibbie fled ; and there for the first time, with his 
three friends about him, he told on his fingers the dire deed 
of the night, and heard from Mrs. Sclater that the murderers 
had been hanged. Ginevra grew white and faint as she 
read his fingers and gestures, but it was more at the thought of 
what the child had come through, than from the horror of the 
narrative. They then turned eastward to the sea, and came 
to the top of the rock-border of the coast, with its cliffs rent 
into gullies, eerie places to look down into ending in caverns 
into which the wave rushed with bellow and boom. Although 
so nigh the city, this was always a solitary place, yet 
rounding a rock, they came upon a young man, who hurried 
a book into his pocket, and would have gone by the other 
side but perceiving himself recognized, came to meet them, 
and saluted Mrs. Sclater, who presented him to Ginevra as 
the Rev. Mr. Duff. 

I have not had the pleasure of seeing you since you were 
quite a little girl. Miss Galbraith,'* said Fergus. 

Ginevra said coldly she did not remember him. The 
youths greeted him in careless student fashion : they had met 
now and then for a moment about the college ; and a little 
meaningless talk followed. 

He was to preach the next day — and for several Sundays 
following — at a certain large church in the city, at the time 
without a minister ; and when they came upon him he was 


334 


SIR GIBBIE. 


Studying his sermon — I do not mean the truths he intended 
to press upon his audience — those he had mastered long ago 
— but his manuscript, studying it in the sense in which actors 
use the word, learning it, that is, by heart laboriously, that 
the words might come from his lips as much like an extem- 
poraneous utterance as possible, consistently with not being 
mistaken for one, which, were it true as the Bible, m^ouM have 
no merit in the ears of those who counted themselves judges 
of the craft. The kind of thing suited Fergus, whose highest 
idea of life was seeming. Naturally capable, he had already 
made of himself rather a dull fellow : for when a man spends 
his energy on appearing to have, he is all the time destroying 
what he has, and therein the very means of becoming what 
he desires to seem. If he gains his end his success is his 
punishment. 

Fergus never forgot that he was a clergyman, always carry- 
ing himself according to his idea of the calling ; therefore 
when the interchange of commonplaces flagged, he began to 
look about him for some remark sufficiently tinged with his 
profession to be suitable for him to make, and for the ladies 
to hear as his. The wind was a thoroughly wintry one from 
the north-east, and had been blowing all night, so that the 
waves were shouldering the rocks with huge assault. Now 
Fergus’s sermon, which he meant to use as a spade for the 
casting of the first turf of the first parallel in the siege of the 
pulpit of the North parish, was upon the vanity of human 
ambition, his text being the grand verse — And so I saw the 
wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy ; 
there was no small amount of fine writing in the manuscript 
he had thrust into his pocket ; and his sermon was in his head 
when he remarked, with the wafture of a neatly-gloved hand 
seawards — • 

“I was watching these waves when you found me: they 
seem to be such a picture of the vanity of human endeavour ! 
But just as little as those waves would mind me, if I told 
them they were wasting their labor on these rocks, will men 
mind me, when I tell them to-morrow of the emptiness of 
their ambitions. ” 

“A present enstance o’ the vanity o’ human endeevour ! ” 
said Donal. “What for sud ye, in that case, gang on 
preachin’, sae settin’ them an ill exemple ? ’ 

Duff gave him a high-lidded glance, vouchsafing no reply. 

“Just as those waves,” he continued, “ waste themselves in 
effort, as often foiled as renewed, to tear down these rocks, 


A WALK. 335 

SO do the men of this world go on and on, spending their 
strength for nought. ” 

“Hoots, Fergus!” said Donal again, in broadest speech, 
as if with its bray he would rebuke not the madness but the 
silliness of the prophet, “ye dinna mean to tell me you jaws 
(billows) disna ken their business better nor imagine they hae 
to caw doon the rocks ? ” 

Duff cast a second glance of scorn at what he took for the 
prosaic stupidity or poverty-stricken logomachy of Donal, 
while Ginevra opened on him big brown eyes, as much as to 
say, “Donal, who was it set me down for saying a man 
couldn’t be a burn 1 ” But Gibbie’s face was expectant : he 
knew Donal. Mrs. Sclater also looked interested ; she did 
not much like Duff, and by this time she suspected Donal of 
genius. Donal turned to Ginevra with a smile, and said, in 
the best English he could command — 

“Bear with me a moment, Miss Galbraith. If Mr. Duff 
will oblige me by answering my question, I trust I shall satisfy 
you I am no turncoat.” 

Fergus stared. What did his father’s herd-boy mean by 
talking such English to the ladies, and such vulgar Scotch to 
him.? Although now a magistrand — that is, one about to 
take his degree of Master of Arts — Donal was still to Fergus 
the cleaner-out of his father’s byres — an upstart, whose 
former position was his real one — towards him at least, who 
knew him. And did the fellow challenge him to a discus- 
sion .? Or did he presume on the familiarity of their boyhood, 
and wish to sport his acquaintance with the popular preacher ! 
On either supposition, he was impertinent. 

“I spoke poetically,” he said, with cold dignity. 

“Ye’ll excuse me, Fergus, ’’replied Donal, “ — for the sake 
o’ auld langsyne, whan I was, as I ever will be, sair obligatit 
till ye — but i’ that ye say noo, ye’r sair wrang : ye wasna 
speykin’ poetically, though I ken weel ye think it, or ye 
wadna say ’t tan’ that’s what garred me tak ye up. For the 
verra essence o’ poetry is trowth, an' as sune’s a word’s no true, 
it’s no poetry, though it may hae on the cast claes o’ ’t. It’s 
nane but them ’at kens na what poetry is, ’at blethers aboot 
poetic license, an’ that kin’ o’ hen-scraich, as gien a poet was 
sic a gowk ’at naebody eedit hoo he lee’d, or whether he gaed 
wi’ ’s cwite (coat) hin’ side afore or no.” 

“I am at a loss to understand you — Donal.? — yes, Donal 
Grant. I remember you very well ; and from the trouble I 
used to take with you to make you distinguish between the 
work of the poet and that of the rhymster, I should have 


SIR GIBBIE. 


336 

thought by this time you would have known a little more 
about the nature of poetry. Personification is a figure of 
speech in constant use by all poets. '' 

“Ow ay ! but there’s true and there’s fause personification; 
an’ it’s no ilka poet ’at kens the differ. Ow, 1 ken ! ye’ll be 
doon upo’ me wi’ yer Byron, ” Fergus shook his head as at 
a false impeachment, but Donal went on — “ but even a poet 
canna mak less poetry. An’ a man ’at in ane o’ his gran’est 
verses cud haiver aboot the birth o’ a yoong airthquack ! — 
losh ! to think o’ ’t growin’ an auld airthquack ! — haith, to 
me it’s no up till a deuk-quack ! — sic a poet micht weel, I 
grant ye, be he ever sic a guid poet whan he tuik heed to 
what he said, he micht weel, I say, blether nonsense aboot 
the sea warrin’ again’ the rocks, an’ sic stuff. ” 

But don’t you see them.? ’’said Fergus, pointing to a great 
billow that fell back at the moment, and lay churning in the 
gulf beneath them. “Are they not in fact wasting the rocks 
away by slow degrees. ? ” 

“What comes o’ yerseemile than, anentthe vanity o’ their 
endeevour.? But thats no wha Fm carin’ aboot. V/hat I 
mainteen is, ’at though they div weir awa’ the rocks, that’s 
nae mair their design nor it's the design o’ a yewky owse to 
kill the tree whan he rubs hit’s skin an’ his ain aff thegither.” 

“Tut! nobody ever means, when he personifies the 
powers of nature, that they know what they are about.” 

“The mair necessar’ till attreebute till them naething but 
their rale design.” 

“If they don’t know what they are about, how can you be 
so foolish as talk of their design .? ” 

“ Ilka thing has a design, — an’ gien it dinna ken’t itseP, 
that’s jist whaur yer true an’ lawfu’ personification comes in. 
There’s no rizon ’at a poet sudna atireebute till a thing as a 
conscious design that which lies at the verra heart o’ ’ts bein’, 
the design for which it’s there. That an’ no ither sud deter- 
mine the personification ye gie a thing — for that’s the trowth 
o’ the thing. Pih, man, Fergus ! the jaws is fechtin’ wi’ nae 
rocks. They’re jist at their pairt in a gran’ cleansin’ hermony. 
They’re at their hoosemaid’s wark, day an’ nicht, to baud the 
warl’ clean, an’ gran’ an’ bonnie they sing at it. Gien I was 
you, I wadna tell fowk any sic nonsense as yon ; I wad tell 
them ’at ilk ane ’at disna dee his wark i’ the warl’, an’ dee ’t 
the richt gait, ’s no the worth o’ a minnin, no to say a 
whaul, for ilk ane o’ thae wee craturs dis the wull o’ him ’at 
made ’im wi’ ilka whisk o’ his bit tailie, fa’in’ in wi’ a’ the 
jabble o’ the jaws again’ the rocks, for it’s a’ ae thing — an’ a’ 


A WALK. 


337 


to baud the muckle sea clean. An’ sae whan I lie i’ my bed, 
an’ a’ at ance there comes a wee soiighie o’ win i’ my face, 
an’ I luik up an’ see it was naething but the wings o’ a flittin’ 
flee, I think wi’ mysel’ hoo a’ the curses are but blessin’s ’at 
ye dinna see intill, an’ hoo ilka midge, an’ flee, an’ muckle 
dronin’ thing ’at gangs aboot singin’ bass, no to mention the 
dops an’ the mairtins an’ the craws an’ the kites an’ the oolets 
an’ the muckle aigles an’ the butterflees, is ’a jist haudin’ the 
airgauin’ ’at ilka defilin’ thing may be weel turnt ower, an’ 
burnt clean. That’s the best I got oot o’ my cheemistry last 
session. An’ fain wad I baud air an’ watter in motion aboot 
me, an’ sae serve my en’ — whether by waggin’ wi’ my wings 
or whiskin’ wi’ my tail. Eh ! it’s jist won’erfu’. It’s a’ ae 
gran’ consortit confusion o’ hermony an’ order ; an’ what 
maks the confusion is only jist ’at a’ thing’s workin’ an’ 
naething sits idle. But awa’ wi’ the nonsense o’ ae thing 
worryin’ an’ fechtin at anither ! — no till ye come to beasts 
an’ fowk an’ syne ye hae eneuch o’ ’t.” 

All the time Fergus had been poking the point of his stick 
into the ground, a smile of superiority curling his lip. 

“I hope, ladies, your wits are not quite swept away in this 
flood of Doric,” he said. 

“You have a poor opinion of the stability of our brains, 
Mr. Duff,” said Mrs. Sclater. 

“I was only judging by myself,” he replied, a little put 
out. ‘ ‘ I can’t say I understood our friend here. Did you ? ” 

“ Perfectly,” answered Mrs. Sclater. 

At that moment came a thunderous wave with a great dow^ 
into the hollow at the end of the gully on whose edge they 
stood. 

“There’s your housemaid’s broom, Donal !” said Ginevra. 

They all laughed. 

“ Everything depends on how you look at a thing,” said 
Fergus, and said no more — inwardly resolving, however, to 
omit from his sermon a certain sentence about the idle waves 
dashing themselves to ruin on the rocks they would destroy, 
and to work in something instead about the winds of the 
winter tossing the snow. A pause followed. 

“Well, this is Saturday, and to-morrow is my work-day, 
you know, ladies,” he said. “ If you w’ould oblige me with 
your address, Miss Galbraith, I should do myself the honor 
of calling on Mr. Galbraith.” 

Ginevra told him where they lived, but added she was 
afraid he must not expect to see her father, for he had been 
out of health lately, and would see nobody. 


SIR GIBBIE. 


338 

“At all events I shall give myself the chance,” he rejoined, 
and bidding the ladies good-bye, and nodding to the youths, 
turned and walked away. 

For some, time there was silence. At length Donal spoke. 

“Poor Fergus !” he said with a little sigh. “Pie’s a good-na- 
tured creature, and was a great help to me ; but when I think 
of him a preacher, I seem to see an Egyptian priest standing on 
the threshold of the great door at Ipsambul, blowing with all 
his might to keep out the Libyan desert ; and the four great 
stone gods, sitting behind the altar, far back in the gloom, 
laughing at him.” 

Then Ginevra asked him something which led to a good 
deal of talk about the true and false in poetry, and made 
Mrs. Sclater feel it was not for nothing she had befriended the 
lad from the hills in the strange garments. And she began to 
think whether her husband might not be brought to take a 
higher view of his calling. 

On Monday Fergus went to pay his visit to Mr. Galbraith. 
As Ginevra had said, her father did not appear, but Fergus 
was far from disappointed. He had taken it into his head 
that Miss Galbraith sided with him when that ill-bred fellow 
made his rude, not to say ungrateful, attack upon him, and 
was much pleased to have a talk with her. Ginevra thought 
it would not be right to cherish against him the memory of 
the one sin of his youth in her eyes, but she could not like 
him. She did not know why, but the truth was, she felt, 
without being able to identify, his unreality : she thought it 
was because, both in manners and in dress, so far as the 
custom of his calling would permit, he was that unpleasant 
phenomenon, a fine gentleman. She had never heard him 
preach, or she would have liked him still less ; for he was an 
orator wilful and prepense, choice of long words, fond of 
climaxes, and always aware of the points at which he must 
wave his arm, throw forward his hands, wipe his eyes with the 
finest of large cambric handkerchiefs. * As it was, she was 
heartily tired of him before he went, and when he was gone, 
found, as she sat with her father, that she could not recall a 
word he had said. As tO what had made the fellow stay so 
long, she was therefore positively unable to give her father an 
answer ; the consequence of which was, that, the next time he 
called, Mr. Galbraith, much to her relief, stood the brunt of 
his approach, and received him. The ice thus broken, his 
ingratiating manners, and the full-blown respect he showed 
Mr. Galbraith, enabling the weak man to feel himself, as of 
old, every inch a laird, so won upon him that, when he took 


THE NORTH CHURCH. 


339 


his leave, he gave him a cordial invitation to repeat his visit. 
He did so, in the evening this time, and remembering a pre- 
dilection of the laird’s, begged for a game of backgammon. 
The result of his policy was, that, of many weeks that 
followed, every Monday evening at least he spent with the 
laird. Ginevra was so grateful to him for his attention to her 
father, and his efforts to draw him out of his gloom, that she 
came gradually to let a little light of favor shine upon him. 
And if the heart of Fergus Duff was drawn to her, that is not 
to be counted to him a fault — neither that, his heart thus 
drawn, he should wish to marry her. Had she been still 
heiress of Glashruach, he dared not have dreamed of such a 
thing, but noting the humble condition to which they were re- 
duced, the growing familiarity of the father, and the friendliness 
of the daughter, he grew very hopeful, and more anxious than 
ever to secure the presentation to the North church, which was 
in the gift of the city. He could easily have got a rich wife, 
but he was more greedy of distinction than of money, and to 
marry the daughter of the man to whom he had been ac- 
customed in childhood to look up as the greatest in the known 
world, was in his eyes like a patent of nobility, would be a 
ratification of his fitness to mingle with the choice of the 
land. 


CHAPTER LI. 

THE NORTH CHURCH. 

It was a cold night in March, cloudy and blowing. Every 
human body was turned into a fortress for bare defence of 
life. There was no snow on the ground, but it seemed as if 
there must be snow everywhere else. There was snow in the 
clouds overhead, and there was snow in the mind of man 
beneath. The very air felt like the quarry out of which the 
snow had been dug which was being ground above. The 
wind felt black, the sky was black, and the lamps were blow- 
ing about as if they wanted to escape, for the darkness was 
the Sunday following the introduction of Fergus, and this 
was the meteoric condition through which Donal and Gibbie 
passed on their way to the North church, to hear him preach 
in the pulpit that was now his own. 

The peoole had been gathering since long before the hour, 
and tne youths couia find only standing room near the door. 


340 


SIR GIBBIE. 


Cold as was the weather, and keen as blew the wind into the 
church every time a door was opened, the instant it was shut 
again it was warm, for the place was crowded from the very 
height of the great steep-sloping galleries, at the back of 
which the people were standing on the window sills, down to 
the double swing-doors, which were constantly cracking 
open as if the house was literally too full to hold the congre- 
gation. The aisles also were crowded with people standing 
all eager yet solemn, with granite faces and live eyes. One 
who did not know better might well have imagined them 
gathered in hunger after good tidings-from the kingdom of 
truth, and hope, whereby they might hasten the coming of 
that kingdom in their souls and the soul they loved. But it 
was hardly that ; it was indeed a long way from it, and no 
such thing : the eagerness was, in the mass, doubtless 
with exceptions, to hear the new preacher, the pyrotechnist 
of human logic and eloquence, who was about to burn his 
halfpenny blue lights over the abyss of truth, and throw his 
yelping crackers into it. 

The eyes of the young men went wandering over the crowd 
looking for any of their few acquaintances, but below they 
mostly fell of course on the backs cf heads. There was how- 
ever, no mistaking either Ginevra’s bonnet or the occiput 
perched like a capital on the long neck of her father. They 
sat a good way in front, about the middle of the great church. 
At the sight of them Gibbie’s face brightened. Donahs turned 
pale as death. For, only the last week but one, he heard of 
the frequent visits of the young preacher to the cottage, and 
of the favor in which he was held by both father and daugh- 
ter ; and his state of mind since, had not, with all his philoso- 
phy to rectify and support it, been an enviable one. That he 
could not for a moment regard himself as a fit husband for 
the lady-lass, or dream of exposing himself or her to the insult 
w hich the offer of himself as a son-in-law would bring on 
them both from the laird, was not a reflection to render the 
thought of such a bag of wind as Fergus Duff marrying her, 
one whit the less horriby unendurable. Had the laird been 
in the same social position as before, Donal would have had 
no fear of his accepting Fergus ; but misfortune alters many 
relations. Fergus’s father was a man of considerable prop- 
erty, Fergus himself almost a man of influence, and already in 
possession of a comfortable income ; it was possible to imag- 
ine that the impoverished Thomas Galbraith, late of Glash- 
ruach, Esq. , might contrive to swallow what annoyance there 
could hot but in any case be in wedding his daughter to the 


THE NORTH CHURCH. 


341 


son of John Duff, late his own tenant of the Mains. Although 
Donal’s thoughts were not of the kind to put him in fit mood 
— I do not say to gather benefit from the prophesying of Fer- 
gus, but to give fair play to the peddler, who now rose to dis- 
play his loaded calico and beggardly shoddy over the book- 
board of the pulpit. But the congregation listened rapt. I 
dare not say there was no divine reality concerned in hia 
utterance, forGibbie saw many a glimmer through the rents 
in his logic, and the thin-worn patches of his philosophy ; 
but it was not such glimmers that fettered the regards of the 
audienee, but the noisy flow and the false, eloquence of the 
preacher. In proportion to the falsehood in us are we ex- 
posed to the falsehood of others. The false plays upon the 
false without discord ; comes to the false and is welcomed 
as the true ; darkness takes darkness for light and great is 
the darkness. I will not attempt an account of the sermon ; 
even admirably rendered, it would be worthless as the best 
of copies of a bad wall-paper. There was in it, to be sure, 
such a glowing description of the city of God as might have 
served to attract thither all the diamond- merchants of Amster- 
dam ; but why a Christian should care to go to such a place, 
let him tell who knows ; while on the other hand, the audience 
appeared equally interested in his equiponderating descrip- 
tion of the place of misery. Not once did he give, or at- 
tempt to give, or indeed could have given, the feeblest idea, 
to a single soul present, or the one terror of the universe — 
the peril of being cast from the arms of essential Love and 
Life into the bosom of living Death. For this teacher of 
men knew nothing whatever but by hearsay, had not in him- 
self experienced one of the joys or one of the horrors he en- 
deavored to embody. 

Gibbie was not at home listening to such a sermon ; he 
was distressed, and said afterwards to Donal he would far 
rather be subjected to Mr. Sclater’s than Fergus’s 
It caused him pain too to see Donal look so scornful, so con- 
temptuous even ; while it added to Donal’s unrest, and swelled 
his evil mood, to see Mr. Galbraith absorbed. For Ginevra’s 
bonnet, it did not once move — but then it was not set at an 
angle to indicate either eyes upturned in listening, or cast 
down in emotion. Donal would have sacrificed not a few 
songs, the only wealth he possessed, for one peep round the 
corner of that bonnet. He had become painfully aware, 
that, much as he had seen of Ginevra, he knew scarcely any- 
thing of her thoughts ; he had always talked so much more 
to her than she to him, that now, when he longed to know, 


342 


SIR GIBBIE. 


he could not even guess what she might be thinking, or what 
effect such “ an arrangement” of red and yellow would have 
upon her imagination and judgment. She could not think 
or receive what was not true, he felt sure, but she might easily 
enough attribute truth where it did not exist. 

At length the rockets, Roman candles, and squibs were all 
burnt out, the would-be eternal blazon” was over, and the 
preacher sunk back exhausted in his seat. The people sang ; 
a prayer, fit pendent to such a sermon, followed, and the 
congregation was dismissed — it could not be with much addi- 
tional strength to meet the sorrows, temptations, sophisms, 
commonplaces, disappointments, dulnesses, stupidities, and 
general devilries of the week, although not a few paid the 
preacher welcome compliments on his “gran’ discourse.” 

The young men were out among the first, and going round 
to another door, in the church-yard, by which they judged 
Ginevra and her father must issue, there stood waiting. The 
night was utterly changed. The wind had gone about, and 
the vapors were high in heaven, broken all into cloud-masses 
of sombre grandeur. Now from behind, now upon their sides, 
they were made glorious by full moon, while through their 
rents appeared the sky and the ever marvellous stars. Gibbie’s 
eyes went climbing up the the spire that shot skyward over 
their heads. Around its point the clouds and the moon 
seemed to gather, grouping themselves in grand carelessness ; 
and he thought of the Son of Man coming in the clouds of 
heaven : to us mere heaps of watery vapor, ever ready to fall, 
drowning the earth in rain, or burying it in snow, to angel- 
feet they might be solid masses whereon to tread attendant 
upon him, who, although with his word he ruled winds and 
seas, loved to be waited on by the multitude of his own I He 
was yet gazing, forgetful of the human tide about him, watch- 
ing the glory dominant over storm, when his companion 
pinched his arm : he looked, and was aware that Fergus, 
muffled to the eyes, was standing beside them. He seemed 
not to see them, and they were nowise inclined to attract his 
attention, but gazed motionless on the church door, an un- 
sealed fountain of souls. What a curious thing it is to watch 
an issuing crowd of faces for one loved one — all so unattract- 
ive, provoking, blamable, as they come rolling round corners, 
dividing, and flowing away — not one of them the right one ! 
But at last out she did come — Ginevra, like a daisy among 
mown grass ! It was really she ! — but with her father. She 
saw Donal, glanced from him to Gibbie, cast down her sweet 


THE NORTH CHURCH. 543 

eyes, and made no sign. Fergus had already advanced and 
addressed the laird. 

“Ah, Mr. Duff !” said Mr. Galbraith; “excuse me, but 
would you oblige me by giving your arm to my daughter ? I 
see a friend waiting to speak to me. I shall overtake you in a 
moment. 

Fergus murmured his pleasure, and Ginevra and he moved 
away together. The youths for a moment watched the father. 
Fie dawdled — evidently wanted to speak to no one. They 
then followed the two, walking some yards behind them.- 
Every other moment Fergus would bend his head toward 
Ginevra ; once or twice they saw the little bonnet turn upward 
in response or question. Poor Donal was burning with law- 
less and foolish indignation : why should the minister muffle 
himself up like an old woman in the crowd, and take off the 
great handkerchief when talking with the lady ? When the 
youths reached the street where the cottage stood, they turned 
the corner after them, and walked quickly up to them where 
they stood at the gate waiting for it to be opened. 

“Sic a gran" nicht !” said Donal, after the usual greetings. 
“ Sir Gibbie an" me "s haein’ a dawner wi" the mune. Yev/ad 
think she had licht eneuch to hand the cloods aff o" her, wad 
ye no, mem ? But na ! they’ll be upon her, an" Fm feart 
there’s ae unco black ane yon’er — dinna ye see "t — wi’ a straik 
o" white, aboot the thrapple o" ’t ? There — dinna ye see ’t ?’" 
he went on pointing to the clouds about the moon, “ — that 
ane, I’m doobtin’ ’ill hae the better o’ her or lang — tak her 
intill ’ts airms, an’ bray a" the licht oot o’ her. Guid nicht, 
mem. Guid nicht, Fergus. You ministers sudna mak yer- 
sels sae like cloods. Ye sud be cled in white an’ gowd, an" 
a’ colors o" stanes, like the new Jerooslem ye tell sic tales 
aboot, an’ syne naebody wad mistak the news ye bring.” 

Therewith Donal walked on, doubtless for the moment a 
little relieved. But before they had walked far, he broke 
down altogether. 

“Gibbie,” he said, “yon rascal’s gauin" to merry the 
teddy-lass ! an’ it drives me mad to think it. Gien I cud 
but ance see an’ speyk till her — ance — ^jist ance ! Lord I 
v.'hat ’ll come o" a’ the gowans upo’ the Mains, an’ the 
heather upo’ Glashgar !” 

lie burst out crying, but instantly dashed away his tears 
with indignation at his weakness. 

“ I maun dree my weird” {undergo my doom), he said, and 
sajd no more. 

Gibbie’s face had grown white in the moon-gleams, and his 


344 


SIR GIBBIE. 


lips trembled. He put his arm through Donal’s and clung 
to him, and in silence they went home. When they reached 
Donals room, Donal entering shut the door behind him and 
shut out Gibbie. He stood for a moment like one dazed, 
then suddenly coming to himself, turned away, left the house, 
and ran straight to Daur-street. 

When the minister’s door was opened to him, he went to 
that of the dining-room, knowing Mr. and Mrs. Sclater would 
then be at supper. Happily for his intent, the minister was 
at the moment having his tumbler of toddy after the labors of 
the day, an indulgence which, so long as Gibbie was in the 
house, he had, ever since that first dinner-party, taken in 
private, out of regard, as he pretended to himself, for the 
boy’s painful associations with it, but in reality, to his credit 
be it told if it may, from a little shame of the thing itself; 
and his wife therefore, when she saw Gibbie, rose, and, 
meeting him, took him with her to her own little sitting-room, 
where they had a long talk, of which the result appeared the 
next night in a note from ]\Irs. Sclater to Gibbie, asking him 
and Donal to spend the evening of Tuesday with her. 


CHAPTER LII. 

THE QUARRY. 

Donal threw everything aside, careless of possible disgrace 
in the class the next morning, and, trembling with hope, 
accompanied Gibbie ; she would be there — surely ! It was 
one of those clear nights in which a gleam of straw-color in 
the west, with light-thinned gray-green deepening into blue 
above it, is like the very edge of the axe of the cold — the 
edge that reaches the soul. But the youths were warm 
enough : they had health and hope. The hospitable crimson 
room, with its round table set out for a Scotch tea, and its 
fire blazing hugely, received them. And there sat Ginevra 
by the fire ! with her pretty feet on a footstool before it : in 
those days ladies wore open shoes, and showed dainty 
stockings. Her face looked rosy, but it was from the fire- 
light, for when she turned it towards them, it showed pale as 
usual. She received them, as always, with the same simple 
sincerity that had been hers on the bank of the Lorrie burn. 
But Gibbie read some trouble in her eyes, for his soul was all 
touch, and, like a delicate spiritual seismograph, responded 


THE QUARRY. 


345 


at once to the least tremble of a neighboring soul. The 
minister was not present, and Mrs. Sclater had both to be the 
blazing coal, and keep blowing herself, else, however hot it 
might be at the smouldering hearth, the little company would 
have sent up no flame of talk. 

When tea was over, Gibbie went to the window, got within 
the red curtains, and peeped out. Returning presently, he 
spelled with fingers and signed with hands to Ginevra that it 
was a glorious night : would she not come for a walk ? 
Ginevra looked to Mrs. Sclater. 

‘‘Gibbie wants me to go for a walk,” she said. 

“Certainly, my dear — if you are well enough to go with 
him,” replied her friend. 

“ I am always well,” answered Ginevra. 

“I can’t go with you, ” said IMrs. Sclater, “ for I expect my 
husband every moment ; but what occasion is there, with two 
such knights to protect you ?” 

She was straining hard on the bit of propriety ; but she 
knew them all so well I she said to herself. Then first per- 
ceiving Gibbie’s design, Donal cast him a grateful glance, 
while Ginevra rose hastily, and ran to put on her outer 
garments Plainly to Donal, she was pleased to go. 

When they stood on the pavement, there was the moon, 
the very cream of light, ladying it in a blue heaven. It was 
not all her own, but the clouds about her were white and at- 
tendant, and ever when they came near her took on her 
livery — the poor paled-rainbow colors, which are all her re- 
flected light can divide into : that strange brown we see so 
often on her cloudy people must, I suppose, be what the red 
or the orange fades to. There was a majesty and peace 
about her airy domination, which Donal himself would have 
found difficult, had he known her state, to bring into har- 
mony with heraeonian death. Strange that the light of lovers 
should be the coldest of all cold things within human ken 
— dead with cold, millions of years before our first father and 
mother appeared each to the other on the earth ! The air 
was keen but dry. Nothing could fall but snow ; and of 
anything like it there was nothing but those few frozen vapors 
that came softly out of the deeps to wait on the moon. Be- 
tween them and behind them lay depth absolute, expressed 
in the perfection of nocturnal blues, deep as gentle, the very 
home of the dwelling stars. The steps of the youths rang on 
the pavements, and Donal’s voice seemed to him so loud and 
clear that he muffled it all in gentler meaning. He spoke 
low, and Ginevra answered him softly. They walked close 


SIR GIBBIE. 


346 

together, and Gibbie flitted to and fro, now on this side, now 
on that, now in front of them, now behind. 

Hoo likit ye the sermon, mem ? ” asked Donal. 

‘‘Papa thought it a grand sermon,'’ answered Ginevra. 

“An'yerser?" persisted Donal. 

‘Papa tells me I am no judge," she replied. 

“That’s as muckle as to say ye didna like it sae weel as he 
did ! " returned Donal, in a tone expressing some relief. 

“ Mr. Duff is very good to my father, Donal," she rejoined, 
“and I don’t like to say anything against his sermon ; but all 
the time I could not help thinking whether your mother 
would like this and that ; for you know, Donal, any good 
there is in me I have got from her, and from Gibbie — and 
from you, Donal." 

The youth’s heart beat with a pleasure that rose to physical 
pain. Had he been a winged creature he would have flown 
straight up ; but being a sober wingless animal, he stumped 
on with his two happy legs. Gladly would he have shown 
her the unreality of Fergus — that he was a poor shallow crea- 
ture, with only substance enough to carry show and seeming, 
but he felt, just because he had reason to fear him, that it 
would be unmanly to speak the truth of him behind his back, 
except in the absolute necessity of rectitude. He felt also 
that, if Ginevra owed her father’s friend such delicacy, he 
owed him at least a little silence ; for was he not under more 
obligation to this same shallow-pated orator, than to all eternity 
he could wipe out, even if eternity carried in it the pos- 
sibility of wiping out an obligation ? Few men understand, 
but Donal did, that he who would cancel an obligation is a 
dishonest man. I cannot help it that many a good man — 
good, that is, because he is growing better — must then be 
reckoned in the list of the dishonest : he is in their number 
until he leaves it. 

Donal remaining silent, Ginevra presently returned him his 
own question : 

“ How did j/ou like the sermon, Donal .? " 

“Div ye want me to say, mem .?’’ he asked. 

“I do, Donal," she answered. 

“Weel, I wad jist say, in a general w’y, ’at I canna think 
muckle o’ ony sermon ’at micht gar a body think mair o’ the 
precher nor o’ him ’at he comes to prech aboot. I mean ’at 
I dinna see hoo onybody was to lo’e God or his neebour ae 
jot the mair for bearin’ yon sermon last nicht." 

“ But might not some be frightened by it, and brought to 
repentance, Donal ? " suggested the girl. 


THE QUARRY. 


347 


‘"Ou ay; I daur say; I dinna ken. But I canna help 
thinkin’ ’at what disna gie God onything like fair play, canna 
dee muckle guid to men, an’ may, I doobt, dee a heap o’ ill. 
It’s a pagan kin o’ a thing yon. ” 

“ That’s just what I was feeling — I don’t say thinking, you 
know — for you say we must not say ihink when we have taken 
no trouble about it. I am sorry for Mr. Duff, if he has 
taken to teaching where he does not understand.” 

They had left the city behind them, and were walking a 
wide open road, with a great sky above it. On its borders 
were small fenced fields, and a house here and there with a 
garden. It was a plain-featured, slightly undulating country, 
with hardly any trees — not at all beautiful, except as every 
place under heaven which man has not defiled is beautiful to 
him who can see what is there. But this night the earth was 
nothing : what was in them and over them was all. Donal 
felt — as so many will feel, before the earth, like a hen set to 
hatch the eggs of a soaring bird, shall have done rearing 
broods for heaven — that, with this essential love and wonder 
by his side, to be doomed to go on walking to all eternity 
would be a blissful fate, were the landscape turned to a brick- 
field, and the sky to persistent gray. 

“ Wad ye no tak my airm, mem ? ” he said at length, sum- 
moning courage. “1 jist fin’ mysel’ like a horse wi’ a reyn 
brocken, gaein’ by mysel’ throu’ the air this gait.” 

Before he had finished the sentence Ginevra had accepted 
the offer. It was the first time. His arm trembled. He 
thought it was her hand. 

“Ye’re no cauld, are ye, mem he said. 

“Not the least,” she answered. 

“Eh, mem ! gien fowk was but a’ made oot o’ the same 
clay, like, ’at ane micht say till anither — ‘Ye hae me as ye 
hae yersel’ ’ ! ” 

“Yes, Donal,” rejoined Ginevra; “I wish we were all 
made of the poet-clay like you ! What it would be to have 
a well inside, out of which to draw songs and ballads as I 
pleased ! That’s what you have, Donal — or, rather, you’re 
just a draw-well of music yourself.” 

Donal laughed merrily. A moment more and he broke 
out singing : 

My thoughts are like fireflies, pulsing in moonlight ; 

My heart is a silver cup, full of red wine; 

My soul a pale gleaming horizon, whence soon light 
Will flood the gold earth with a torrent divine. 


348 


SIR GIBBIE. 


‘ ‘ What’s that, Donal ? ” cried Ginevra. 

‘‘Ow, naething,” answered Donal. “It was only my hert 
lauchin’. ” 

“Say the words,” said Ginevra. 

“I canna — I dinna ken them noo,” replied Donal. 

“Oh, Donal? are those lovely words gone — altogether — 
for ever ? Shall I not hear them again ? ” 

“ ril try to min’ upo’ them whan I gang hame,” he said. 
“ I canna the noo. I can think o’ naething but ae thing.” 

“ And what is that, Donal ? ” 

“Yersel’,” answered Donal. 

Ginevra’s hand lifted just a half of its weight from Donal’s 
arm, like a bird that had thought of flying, then settled 
again. 

“It is very pleasant to be together once more as in the old 
time, Donal — though there are no daisies and green fields. 
But what place is that, Donal ? ” 

Instinctively, almost unconsciously, she wanted to turn the 
conversation. The place she pointed to was an opening im- 
mediately on the roadside, through a high bank — narrow and 
dark, with one side half lighted by the moon. She had often 
passed it, walking with her school-fellows, but had never 
thought of asking what it was. In the shining dusk it looked 
strange and a little dreadful. 

“It’s the muckle quarry, mem, ” answered Donal: “ div 
ye no ken that? That’s whaur maist the haill toon cam oot 
o’. It’s a some eerie kin’ o’ a place to luik at i’ this licht. 
I won’er at ye never saw’t. ” 

“ I have seen the opening there, but never took much 
notice of it before,” said Ginevra. 

“Comean’ Til lat ye see’t,” rejoined Donal. “ It’s weel 
worth luikin’ intill. Ye hae nae notion sic a place as ’tis. It 
micht be amo’ the grenite muntains o’ Aigypt, though they 
takna freely sic fine blocks oot o’ this ane as they tuik oot o’ 
that at Syene. Ye wadna be fleyt to come an’ see what the 
meen maks o’ ’t, wad ye, mem ? ” 

“No, Donal. I would not be frightened to go anywhere 
with you. But — ” 

“Eh, mem! it maks me richt prood to hear ye say that. 
Come awa’ than.” 

So saying, he turned aside, and led her into the narrow 
passage, cut through a friable sort of granite. Gibbie, think- 
ing they had gone to have but a peep and return, stood in the 
road, looking at the clouds and the moon, and crooning to 


THE QUARRY. 349 

himself. By and by, when he found they did not return, he 
followed them. 

When they reached the end of the cutting, Ginevra started 
at sight of the vast gulf, the moon showing the one wall a 
ghastly gray, and from the other throwing a shadow half 
across the bottom. But a winding road went down into it, 
and Donal led her on. She shrunk at first, drawing back 
from the profound, mysterious-looking abyss, so awfully still ; 
but when Donal looked at her, she was ashamed to refuse to 
go farther, and indeed almost afraid to take her hand from 
his arm ; so he led her down the terrace road. The side of 
the quarry was on one hand, and on the other she could see 
only into the gulf. 

“Oh, Donal!” she said at length, almost in a whisper, 
“this is like a dream I once had, of going down and down a 
long roundabout road, inside the earth, down and down, to 
the heart of a place full of the dead — the ground black with 
death, and between horrible w'alls. ” 

Donal looked at her ; his face was in the light reflected 
from the opposite gray precipice ; she thought it looked white 
and strange, and grew more frightened, but dared not speak. 
Presently Donal again began to sing, and this is something 
like what he sang : — 

“ Death ! whaur do ye bide, auid Death ? ” 

“ I bide in ilka breath,” 

Quo’ Death. 

“No i’ the pyramids, 

An’ no the worms amids, 

’Neth coffin-lids ; 

I bidena whaur life has been, 

An’ whar’s nae mair to be dime.” 

“Death I whar do ye bide, auld Death? ” 

“Wi’ the leevin’, to dee ’at’s laith,” 

Quo’ Death. 

“ Wi’ the man an’ the wife 
’At lo’e like life. 

But strife ; {without) 

Wi’ the bairns ’at hing to their mither. 

An’ a’ ’at lo’e ane anither.” 

“ Death I whaur do ye bide, auld Death? 

“ Abune an’ aboot an’ aneath,” 

Quo’ Death. 

“ But o’ a’ the airts. 

An’ o’ a’ the pairts. 

In herts. 

Whan the tane to the tither says na. 

An’ the north win’ begins to blaw.” 


350 


SIR GIBBIE. 


“What a terrible song, Donal > ” said Ginevra. 

He made no reply, but went on, leading her down into the 
pit : he had been afraid she was going to draw back, and 
sang the first words her words suggested, knowing she would 
not interrupt him. The aspect of the place grew frightful to 
her. 

“Are you sure there are no holes — full of water, down 
there ? ” she faltered. 

“Ay, there’s ane or twa,” replied Donal, “but we’ll baud 
oot o’ them. ” 

Ginevra shuddered, but was determined to show no fear : 
Donal should not reproach her with lack of faith ! They 
stepped at last on the level below, covered with granite chips 
and stones and great blocks. In the middle rose a confused 
heap of all sorts. To this, and round to the other side of 
it, Donal led her. There shone the moon on the corner of a 
pool, the rest of which crept away in the blackness under an 
overhanging mass. She caught his arm with both hands. 
He told her to look up. Steep granite rocks was above them 

round, on one side dark, on the other mottled with the 
moon and the thousand shadows of its own roughness ; over 
the gulf hung vaulted the blue, cloud-blotted sky, whence 
the moon seemed to look straight down upon her, asking 
what they were about, away from their kind, in such a place 
of terror. 

Suddenly Donal caught her hand. She looked in his face. 
It was not the moon that could make it so white. 

“ Ginevra 1 ” he said with trembling voice. 

“Yes, Donal,” she answered. 

“ Ye’re no angry at me for ca’in ye by yer name ? I never 
did it afore.” 

“I always call you Donal,” she answered. 

“That’s nait’ral. Ye’re a gran’ leddy, an’ I’m naething 
abune a herd-laddie.” 

“You’re a great poet, Donal, and that’s much more than 
being a lady or gentleman.” 

“ Ay, maybe. ” answered Donal listlessly, as if he were 
thinking of something far away ; “but it winna mak up for 
the tither ; they’re no upo’ the same side o’ the w^atter, like. 
A puir lad like me daurna lift an ee till a gran’ leddy like you, 
mem. A’ the warl’ wad but scorn him, an’ lauch at the verra 
notion. My times near ower at the college, an’ I see nae- 
thing for’t but gang hame an’ fee {hire myself \ I’ll be bet- 
ter workin’ wi’ my ban’s nor wi’ my held whan I hae nae 
houp left o’ ever seein’ yer face again. I winna lowse a day 


THT?: QUARRY. 


351 


aboot it Gien I lowse time I may lowse my rizon. Hae 
patience wi’ me ae meenute, mem ; Tm jist driven to tell ye 
the trowth. It’s mony a lang sin’ I hae kent mysel’ wantin’ 
you. Ye’re the boady, an’ I’m the shadow. I dinna mean 
nae hyperbolics — that’s the w’y the thing luiks to me i’ my 
ain thouchts. Eh, mem, but ye’re bonnie i Ye dinna ken 
yersel’ hoo bonnie ye are, nor what a subversion you mak i’ 
my hert an’ my heid. I cud jist cut my heid aff, an’ lay ’t 
aneth yer feet to hand them aff o’ the cauld flure. ” 

Still she looked him in the eyes, like one bewildered, unable 
to withdraw her eyes from his. Her face too had grown 
white. 

“Tell me to hand my tongue, mem, an’ I’ll baud it,” he 
said. 

Her lips moved, but no sound came. 

“I ken weel,” he went on, “ye can never luik upo’ me as 
onything mair nor a kin’ o’ a human bird, ’at ye wad hing in 
a cage, an’ gie seeds an’ bits o’ sugar till, an’ hearken till 
whan he sang. I’ll never trouble ye nae mair, an’ whether 
ye grant me my prayer or no, ye'll never see me again. The 
only differ ’ill be ’at I’ll aither hing my heid or hand it up for 
the rest o’ my days. I wad fain ken ’at I wasna despised, 
an’ ’at maybe gien things had been different, — but na, I 
dinna mean that ; I mean naething ’at wad fricht ye frae what 
I wad hae. It sudna mean a hair mair nor lies in itsel’. ” 
“What is it, Donal.?” said Ginevra, half inaudibly, and 
with effort : she could scarcely speak for a fluttering in her 
throat. 

“I cud beseech ye upo’ my k-nees,” he went on, as if she 
had not spoken, “ to lat me kiss yer bonnie fut ; but that ye 
micht grant for bare peety, an’ that wad dee me little guid ; 
sae for ance an’ for a’, till maybe efter we’re a’ ayont the 
muckle sea, I beseech at the favor o’ yer sweet sowl, to lay 
upo’ me, as upon’, the lips o’ the sowl ’at sang ye thesangs ye 
likit sae weel to hear whan ye was but a leddy-lassie— ae soli- 
tary kiss. It shall be holy to me as the licht ; an’ I sweir by 
the Trowth I’ll think o’ ’t but as ye think, an’ man nor 

wuman nor bairn, no even Gibbie himsel’, sail ken ” 

The last word broke the spell upon Ginevra. 

“But, Donal,” she said, as quietly as when years ago they 
talked by the Lorrie side, “would it be right.? — a secret with 

you I could not tell to any one .? — not even if afterwards ” 

Donal’s face grew so ghastly with utter despair that absolute 
terror seized her ; she turned from him and fled, calling 
“Gibbie! Gibbie!” 


352 


SIR GIBBIE. 


He was not many yards off, approaching the mound as 
she came from behind it. He ran to meet her. She darted 
to him like a dove pursued by a hawk, threw herself into 
his arms, laid her head on his shoulder, and wept. Gibbie 
held her fast, and with all the ways in his poor power sought 
to comfort her. She raised her face at length. It was all 
wet with tears which glistened in the moonlight. Hurriedly 
Gibbie asked on his fingers : 

“ Was Donal not good to you .? " 

“ He’s beautiful^’' she sobbed ; but I couldn’t, you know, 
Gibbie, I couldn’t. I don’t care a straw about position and 
all that — who would with a poet ? — but I couldn’t you know, 
Gibbie. I couldn’t let him think I might have married him 
— in any case : could I now, Gibbie ? ” 

She laid her head again on his shoulder and sobbed. Gib- 
bie did not well understand her. Donal, where he had 
thrown himself on a heap of granite chips, heard and under- 
stood, felt and knew and resolved all in one. The moon 
shone, and the clouds went flitting like ice-floe about the 
sky, now gray in distance, now near the moon and white, 
now in her very presence and adorned with her favor on their 
bosoms, now drifting again into the gray ; and still the two, 
Ginevra and Gibbie, stood motionless — Gibbie with the tears 
in his eyes, and Ginevra weeping as if her heart would break ; 
and behind the granite blocks lay Donal. 

Again Ginevra raised her head. 

“Gibbie, you must go and look after poor Donal,” she 
said. 

Gibbie went, but Donal was nowhere to be seen. To escape 
the two he loved so well, and be alone as he felt, he had 
crept away softly into one of the many recesses of the place. 
Again and again Gibbie made the noise with which he was 
accustomed to call him, but he gave back no answer, and 
they understood that wherever he was he wanted to be left to 
himself. They climbed again the winding way out of the 
gulf, and left him the heart of its desolation. 

“ Take me home, Gibbie,” said Ginevra, when they reached 
the high road. 

As they went, not a word more passed between them. 
Ginevra was as dumb as Gibbie, and Gibbie was sadder than 
he had ever been in his life — not only for Donal’s sake, but 
because, in his inexperienced heart, he feared that Ginevra 
would not listen to Donal because she could not — because 
she had already promised herself to Fergus Duff; and with 
all his love to his kind, he could not think it well that Fergus 


THE QUARRY. 


353 


should be made happy at such a price. He left her at her 
own door, and went home hoping to find Donal there before 
him. 

He was not there. Hour after hour passed, and he did not 
appear. At eleven o'clock, Gibbie set out to look for him, 
but with little hope of finding him. He went all the way 
back to the quarry, thinking it possible he might be waiting 
there, expecting him to return without Gmevra. The moon 
was now low, and her light reached but a litttle way into it, 
so that the look of the place was quite altered, and the bottom 
of it almost dark. But Gibbie had no fear. He went down 
to the spot, almost feeling his way, where they had stood, got 
upon the heap, and called and whistled many times. But no 
answer came. Donal was away, he did not himself know 
where, wandering wherever the feet in his spirit led him. Gib- 
bie went home again, and sat up all night, keeping the kettle 
boiling, ready to make tea for him the moment he should 
come in. But even in the morning Donal did not appear. 
Gibbie was anxious — for Donal was unhappy. 

He might hear of him at the college, he thought, and went 
at the usual hour. Sure enough, as he entered the quad- 
rangle, there was Donal going in at the door leading to the 
moral philosophy class-room. For hours, neglecting his own 
classes, he watched about the court, but Donal never showed 
himself. Gibbie concluded he had watched to avoid him, 
and had gone home by Crown street, and himself returned 
the usual and shorter way, sure almost of now finding him in 
his room — although probably with the door locked. The 
room was empty, and JMistress Murkison had not seen him. 

Donal's final examination, upon which alone his degree 
now depended, came on the*next day : Gibbie watched at a 
certain corner, and unseen saw him pass — with a face pale 
but strong, eyes that seemed not to have slept, and lips that 
looked the inexorable warders of many sighs. After that he 
did not see him once till the last day of the session arrived. 
Then in the public room he saw him go up to receive his de- 
gree. Never before had he seen him look grand ; and Gibbie 
knew that there was not any evil in the world, except wrong. 
But it had been the dreariest week he had ever passed. As 
they came from the public room, he lay in wait ^or him once 
more, but again in vain : he must have gone through the 
sacristan's garden behind. 

When he reached his lodging, he found a n» U from Donal 
waiting him, in which he bade him good-by , said he was 


354 


SIR GIBBIE. 


gone to his mother, and asked him to pack up his things 
for him : he would write to Mistress Murkison and tell her 
what to do with the chest. 


CHAPTER LIII. 

A NIGHT-WATCH. 

A SENSE of loneliness, such as in all his forsaken times he 
had never felt, overshadowed Gibbie when, he read this letter. 
He was altogether perplexed by Donal’s persistent avoidance 
of him. He had done nothing to hurt him, and knew himself 
his friend in his sorrow as well as in his joy. He sat down in 
the room that had been his, and wrote to him. As often as 
he raised his eyes — for he had not shut the door — he saw the 
dusty sunshine on the old furniture. It was a bright day, 
one of the poursuivants of the yet distant summer, but how 
dreary everything looked ! how miserable and heartless now 
Honal was gone, and would never regard those things any 
more ! When he had ended his letter, almost for the first 
time in his life, he sat thinking what he should do next It 
was as if he were suddenly becalmed on the high seas ; one 
wind had ceased to blow, and another had not begun. It 
troubled him a little that he must now return to Mr. Sclater, 
and once more feel the pressure of a nature not homogeneous 
with his own. But it would not be for long. 

Mr. Sclater had thought of making a movement towards 
gaining an extention of his tutelage beyond the ordinary legal 
period, on the ground of unfitness in his ward for the manage- 
ment of his property ; butGibbie’s character and scholarship, 
and the opinion of the world which would follow failure, had 
deterred him from the attempt. In the month of May, there- 
fore, when, according to the registry of his birth in the parish 
book, he would be of age, he would also be, as he expected, 
his own master, so far as other mortals were concerned. As 
to what he would then do, he had thought much, and had 
plans, but no one knew anything of them except Donal — who 
had forsaken him. 

He was in no haste to return to Daur-street. He packed 
Donal’s things, with all the books they had bought together, 
and committed the chest to Mistress Murkison. He then told 


A NIGHT-WATCH. 


355 


her he would rather not give up his room just yet, but would 
like to keep it on for a while, and come and go as he pleased; 
to which the old woman replied : 

“Asyewull, Sir Gibbie. Comean’ gang as free as the 
win,’ Mak o’ my hoose as gien it war yer ain. ” 

He told her he would sleep there that night, and she got 
him his dinner as usual ; after which, putting a Greek book 
in his pocket, he went out, thinking to go to the end of the 
pier and sit there awhile. He would gladly have gone to 
Ginevra, but she had prevented him when she was at school, 
and had never asked him since she left it. But Gibbie was 
not ennuye : the pleasure of his life came from the very roots 
of his being, and would therefore run into any channel of his 
consciousness ; neither was he greatly troubled ; nothing 
could “ put rancours in the vessel of” his peace he was 
only very hungry after the real presence of the human ; and 
scarcely had he set his foot on the pavement, when he resolved 
to go and see Mistress Croale. The sun, still bright, was 
sinking towards the west, and a cold wind was blowing. He 
walked to the market, up to the gallery of it, and on to the 
farther end, greeting one and another of the keepers of the 
little shops, until he reached that of Mistress Croale. She 
was overjoyed at sight of him, and proud the neighbors saw 
the terms they were on. She understood his signs and finger- 
speech tolerably, and held her part of the conversation in 
audible utterance. She told him that for the week past Donal 
had occupied her garret — she did not know why, she said, 
and hoped nothing had gone wrong between them. Gibbie 
signed that he could not tell her about it there, but would go 
and take tea with her in the evening, 

“I’m sorry I canna be hame sae ear,’” she replied. “I 
promised to tak my dish o' tay wi’ auld Mistress Green — the 
kail-wife, ye ken. Sir Gibbie.” Gibbie nodded and she re- 
sumed : “But gien ye wad tak a lug o’ a Fin’on haddie wi’ 
me at nine o’clock, I wad be prood.” 

Gibbie nodded again, and left her. 

All this time he had not happened to discover that the lady 
who stood at the next counter, not more than a couple of 
yards from him, was Miss Kimble — which was the less sur- 
prising in that the lady took some trouble to hide the fact. 
She extended her purchasing when she saw who was shaking 
hands with the next stall-keeper, but kept her face turned 
from him, heard all Mrs. Croale said to him, and went away 
asking herself what possible relations except objectionable 
ones could exist between such a pair. She knew little or 


356 


SIR GIBBIE. 


nothing of Gibbie's early history, for she had not been a 
dweller in the city when Gibbie was known as well as the 
town-cross to almost every man, woman, and child in it, else 
perhaps she might, but I doubt it, have modified her conclu- 
sion. Her instinct was in the right, she said, with self- 
gratulation ; he was a lad of low character and tastes, just 
what she had taken him for the first moment she saw him : 
his friends could not know what he was ; she was bound to 
acquaint them with his conduct ; and first of all, in duty to 
her old pupil, she must let Mr. Galbraith know what sort of 
friendships this Sir Gilbert, his nephew, cultivated. She went 
therefore straight to the cottage. 

Fergus was there when she rang the bell. IVIr. Galbraith 
looked out, and seeing who it was, retreated — the more 
hurriedly that he owed her money, and imagined she had 
come to dun him. But when she found to her disappoint- 
ment that she could not see him, IMiss Kimble did not there- 
fore attempt to restrain a little longer the pent-up waters of 
her secret. Mr. Duff was a minister, and the intimate friend 
of the family : she would say what she had seen and heard. 
Having then first abjured all love of gossip, she told her tale, 
appealing to the minister whether she had not been right in 
desiring to let Sir Gilbert’s uncle know how he was going on. 

“I was not aware that Sir Gilbert was a cousin of yours. 
Miss Galbraith,” said Fergus. 

Ginevra’s face was rosy red, but it was now dusk, and the 
fire-light had friendly retainer-shadows about it. 

“ He is not my cousin,” she answered. 

“Why, Ginevra ! you told me he was your cousin,” said 
Miss Kimble, with keen moral reproach. 

“ I beg your pardon ; I never did,” said Ginevra. 

“I must see your father instantly,” cried Miss Kimble, 
rising in anger. “ He must be informed at once how much 
he is mistaken in the young gentleman he permits to be on 
such friendly terms with his daughter.” 

“ My father does not know him,” rejoined Ginevra ; 
“and I should prefer they were not brought together just at 
present.” 

Her words sounded strange even in her own ears, but she 
knew no way but the straight one. 

“You quite shock me, Ginevra !” said the school-mistress, 
resuming her seat: “you cannot mean to say you cherish 
acquaintance with a young man of whom your father knows 
nothing, and whom you dare not introduce to him. V’ 

To explain would have been to expose her father to blame. 


A NIGHT-WATCH. 


357 


have known Sir Gilbert from my childhood,” she said. 

‘‘Is it possible your duplicity reaches so far?” cried Miss 
Kimble, assured in her own mind that Ginevra had said he 
was her cousin. 

Fergus thought it was time to interfere. 

“I know something of the circumstances that led to the 
acquaintance of Miss Galbraith with Sir Gilbert,” he said, 
“and I am sure it would only annoy her father to have any 
allusion made to it by one — excuse me. Miss Kimble — who 
is comparatively a stranger. 1 beg you will leave the matter 
to me.” 

Fergus regarded Gibbie as a half-witted fellow, and had no 
fear of him. He knew nothing of the commencement of 
his acquaintance with Ginevra, but imagined it had come 
about through Donal ; for, studiously as Mr. Galbraith had 
avoided mention of his quarrel with Ginevra because of the 
lads, something of it had crept out, and reached the Mains ; 
and in now venturing allusion to that old story, Fergus was 
feeling after a nerve whose vibration, he thought, might afford 
him some influence over Ginevra. 

He spoke authoritatively, and Miss Kimble, though con- 
vinced it was a mere pretence of her graceless pupil that her 
father would not see her, had to yield, and rose. Mr. Duff 
rose also, saying he would walk with her. He returned to the 
cottage, dined with them, and left about eight o’clock. 

All ready well enough acquainted in the city to learn with- 
out difficulty where Mistress Croale lived, and having nothing 
very particular to do, he strolled in the direction of her 
lodging, and saw Gibbie go into the house. Having seen 
him in, he was next seized with the desire to see him out 
again ; having lain in wait for him as a beneficent brownie, 
he must now watch him as a profligate baronet forsooth ! To 
haunt the low streets until he should issue was a dreary pros- 
pect — m the east wind of a March night, which some giant 
up above seemed sowing with great handfuls of rain-seed ; 
but having made up his mind, he stood his ground. For 
two hours he walked vaguely cherishing an idea that he was 
fulfilling a duty of his calling, as a moral policeman. 

When at length Gibbie appeared, he had some difficulty in 
keeping him in sight, for the sky was dark, the moon was 
not yet up, and Gibbie walked like a swift shadow before him. 
Suddenly, as if some old association had waked the old habit, 
he started off at a quick trot. Fergus did his best to follow. 
As he ran, Gibbie caught sight of a woman seated on a door- 
step, almost under a lamp, a few paces up a narrow passage, 


SIR GIBBIE. 


358 

stopped, stepped within the passage, and stood in a shadow 
watching her. She had turned the pocket of her dress inside 
out, and seemed unable to satisfy herself that there was noth- 
ing there but the hole, which she examined again and again, as 
if for the last news of her last coin. Too thoroughly satisfied 
at length, she put back the pocket, and laid her head on her 
hands. Gibbie had not a farthing. Oh, how cold it was ! and 
there sat his own flesh and blood shivering in it ! He went up 
to her. The same moment Fergus passed the end of the court. 
Gibbie took her by the hand. She started in terror, but his 
smile reassured her. He drew her, and she rose. He laid 
her hand on his arm, and she went with him. He 
had not yet begun to think about prudence, and perhaps, if 
some of us thought more about right, we should have less 
occasion to cultivate the inferior virtue. Perhaps also we 
should have more belief that there is One to care that things 
do not go wrong. 

Fergus had given up the chase, and having met a police- 
man, was talking to him, when Gibbie came up with the 
woman on his arm, and passed them. Fergus again followed, 
sure of him now. Had not fear of being recognized prevented 
him from passing them and looking, he would have seen only 
a poor old thing, somewhere about sixty ; but if she had been 
beautiful as the morning, of course Gibbie would have taken 
her all the same. He was the Gibbie that used to see the 
drunk people home. Gibbies like him do not change ; they 
grow. 

After following them through several streets, Fergus saw them 
stop at a door. Gibbie opened it with a key which his spy im- 
agined the woman gave him. They entered, and shut it almost 
in Fergus’s face, as he hurried up determined to speak. Gibbie 
led the poor shivering creature up the stair, across the chaos 
of furniture, and into his room, in the other corner next to 
Donal’s. To his joy he found the fire was not out. He set 
her in the easiest chair he had, put the kettle on, blew the fire 
to a blaze, made coffee, cut bread and butter, ^ot out a pot 
of marmalade, and ate and drank with his guest. She seemed 
quite bewildered and altogether unsure. I believe she took 
him at last, finding he never spoke, for half-crazy, as not a 
few had done, and as many would yet do. She smelt of drink, 
but was sober, and ready enough to eat. When she had 
taken as much as she would, Gibbie turned down the bed- 
clothes, made a sign to her she was to sleep there, took the 
key from the outside of the door, and put it in the lock on 
the inside, nodded a good-night, and left her, closing the 


A NIGHT-WATCH. 


359 


door softly, which he heard her lock behind him, and going 
to Donahs room, where he slept. 

In the morning he knocked at her door, but there was no 
answer, and opening it, he found she was gone. 

When he told Mistress Murkison what he had done, he was 
considerably astonished at the wrath and indignation which in- 
stantly developed themselves in the good creature's atmosphere. 
That her respectable house should be made a hiding-place 
from the wind and a covet from the tempest, was infuriating. 
Without a moment’s delay, she began a sweeping and scrub- 
bing, and general cleansing of the room, as if all the devils 
had spent the night in it. And then for the first time Gibbie 
reflected, that when he ran about the streets, he had never 
been taken home — except once, to be put under the rod and 
staff of the old woman. If Janet had been like the rest of 
them, he would have died upon Glashgar, or be now wander- 
ing about the country, doing odd jobs for half-pence ! He 
must not do like other people — would not, could not, dared 
not be like them ! He had had such a thorough schooling 
in humanity as nobody else had had ! He had been to school 
in the streets, in dark places of revelry and crime, and in the 
very house of light ! 

When Mistress Murkison told him that if ever he did the 
like again, she would give him notice to quit, he looked in 
her face : she stared a moment in return, then threw her arms 
round his neck, and kissed him. 

“Ye're the bonniest cratur o' a muckle idiot 'at ever man 
saw !" she cried ; “an’ gien ye dinna tak the better care, ye’ll 
be soopit aff to haiven afore ye ken whauryeare or what ye're 
aboot." 

Her feelings, if not her sentiments, experienced a relapse 
when she discovered that one of her few silver tea-spoons was 
gone — which, beyond a doubt, the woman had taken : she 
abused her, and again scolded Gibbie, with much vigor. But 
Gibbie said to himself, “The woman is not bad, for there 
w^ere two more silver spoons on the table." Even in the 
matter of stealing we must think of our own beam before our 
neighbor's mote. It is not easy to be honest. There is many 
a thief who is less of a thief than many a respectable member 
of society. The thief must be punished, and assuredly the 
other shall not come out until he has paid the uttermost farth- 
ing. Gibbie, who would have died rather than cast a shadow 
of injustice, was not shocked at the woman's depravity like 
Mistress Murkison. I am afraid he smiled. He took no 
notice either of her scoldings or her lamentations ; but the 


SIR GIBBIF. 


360 

first week after he came of age, he carried her a present of a 
dozen spoons. 

Fergus could not tell Ginevra what he had seen ; and if he 
told her father, she would learn that he had been playing the 
spy. To go to IMr. Sclater would, have compromised him 
similarly. And what great occasion was there? He was 
not the fellow’s keeper ! 

The same day Gibbie went back to his guardians. At his 
request Mrs. Sclater asked Ginevra to spend the following 
evening with them : he wanted to tell her about Donal. She 
accepted the invitation. But in a village near the foot of 
Glashgar, Donal had that morning done what was des- 
tined to prevent her from keeping her engagement ; he 
had posted a letter to her. In an interval of comparative 
quiet, he had recalled the verses he sang to her as they 
walked that evening, and now sent them — completed in a 
very different tone. Not a word accompanied them. 

My thoughts are like fire-flies pulsing in moonlight ; 

My heart like a silver cup full of red wine ; 

My soul a pale gleaming horizon, whence soon light 
Will flood the gold earth with a torrent divine. 

My thouchts are like worms in a starless gleamin’; 

My hert like a sponge that’s fillit wi’ gall ; 

My sowl like a bodiless ghaist sent a roamin’, 

To bide i’ the mirk till the great trumpet call. 

But peace be upo’ ye, as deep as ye’re lo’esome ! 

Brak na an hoor o’ yer fair-dreamy sleep. 

To think o’ the lad wi’ a weicht in his bosom, 

’At ance sent a cry till ye oot o’ the deep. 

Some sharp rocky heicht, to catch a far mornin’ 

Ayont a’ the nichts o’ this warld, he’ll dim’; 

For nane shall say, Luik ! he sank doon at her scornin’, 

Wha rase by the han’ she hield frank oot to him. 

The letter was handed, with one or two more, to Mr. Gal- 
braith, at the breakfast table. He did not receive many let- 
ters now, and could afford time to one that was for his daugh- 
ter. He laid it with the rest by his side, and after breakfast 
took it to his room and read it. He could no more under- 
stand it than Fergus could the Epistle to the Romans, and 
therefore the little he did understand of it was too much. But 
he had begun to be afraid of his daughter : her still dignity 
had begun to tell upon him in his humiliation. He laid the 
letter aside, said nothing and waited, inwardly angry and con- 
temptuous. After a while he began to flatter himself with the 


OF age. 


361 

hope that perhaps it was but a sort of impertinent valentine, 
the writer of which was unknown to Ginevra. From the 
moment of its arrival, however, he kept a stricter watch 
upon her, and that night prevented her from going to Mrs. 
Scluter’s. Gibbie, aware that Fergus continued his visits, 
doubted less and less that she had given herself, to “The 
Bledder," as Donal called the popular preacher. 


CHAPTER LIV. 

OF AGE. 

There was no rejoicings upon Gibbie’s attainment of his 
twenty-first year. His guardian, believing he alone had ac- 
quainted himself with the date, and desiring in his wisdom 
to avoid giving him a feeling of importance made no allusion 
to the fact, as would have been most natural, when they met 
at breakfast on the morning of the day. But, urged thereto 
by Donal, Gibbie had learned the date for himself, and find- 
ing nothing was said, fingered to Mrs. Sclater, “This is my 
birthday.” 

“ I wish you many happy returns,” she answered, with 
kind empressement. “ How old are you to-day? ” 

“ Twenty-one,” he answered — by holding up all his fingers 
twice and then a forefinger. 

She looked struck, and glanced at her husband, who there- 
upon, in his turn, gave utterance to the usual formula of 
goodwill, and said no more. Seeing he was about to leave 
the table, Gibbie claiming his attention, spelled on his fingers 
very slowly, for Mr. Sclater was slow at following this mode 
of communication : 

“ If you please, sir, I want to be put in possession of my 
property as soon as possible.” 

“All in good time. Sir Gilbert,” answered the minister, 
with a superior smile, for he clung with hard reluctance to the 
last vestige of his power. 

“But what is good time?” spelled Gibbie with a smile, 
which none the less that it was of genuine friendliness, indi- 
cated there might be difference of opinion on the point. 

“Oh ! we shall see,” returned the minister coolly. “These 
are not things to be done in a hurry,” he added, as if he had 
been guardian to twenty wards in chancery before. “ We'll 
see in a few days what Mr. Torrie proposes.” 


SIR GIBBIE. 


362 

“But I want my money at once, insisted Gibbie. “I 
have been waiting for it, and now it is time, and why should I 
wait still ? ” 

“To learn patience, if for no other reason. Sir Gilbert,’^ 
answered the minister, with a hard laugh, meant to be jocu- 
lar. “ But indeed such affairs cannot be managed in a mo- 
ment. You will have plenty of time to make a good use of 
your money, if you should have to wait another year or 
two. 

So saying he pushed back his plate and cup, a trick he had, 
and rose from the table. 

“When will you see Mr. Torrie asked Gibbie, rising 
too, and working his telegraph with greater rapidity than be- 
fore. 

“By and by," answered Mr. Sclater, and walked towards 
the door. But Gibbie got between him and it. 

“Will you go with me to Mr. Torrie to-day?" he asked. 

The minister shook his head. Gibbie withdrew, seeming 
a little disappointed. Mr. Sclater left the room. 

“You don’t understand business, Gilbert," said Mrs. 
Sclater. 

Gibbie smiled, got his writing-case, and sitting down at 
the table, wrote as follows : — 

“ Dear Mr. Sclater, — As you have never failed in your part, 
hovy can you wish me to fail in mine? /am now the one 
accountable for this money, which surely has been idle long 
enough, and if I leave it still unused, I shall be doing wrong, 
and there are things I have to do with it which ought to be 
set about immediately. I am sorry to seem importunate, but 
if by twelve o’clock you have not gone with me to Mr. Torrie, 
I will go to Messrs. Hope & Waver, who will tell me 
what I ought to do next, in order to be put in possession. 
It makes me unhappy to write like this, but I am not a child 
any longer, and having a man’s work to do, I cannot consent 
to be treated as a child. I will do as I say. I am, dear Mr. 
Sclater, your affectionate ward, Gilbert Galbraith." 

He took the letter to the study, and having given it to Mr. 
Sclater, withdrew. The minister might have known by this 
time with what sort of a youth he had to deal ! He came 
down instantly, put the best face on it he could, said that if 
Sir Gilbert was so eager to take up the burden, he was ready 
enough to cast it off, and they would go at once to Mr. 
Torrie. 

With the lawyer, Gibbie insisted on understanding every- 
thing, and that all should be legally arranged as speedily as 


OF AGE. 


363 

possible. Mr. Torrie saw that, if he did not make things 
plain, or gave the least cause for doubt, the youth would 
most likely apply elsewhere for advice, and therefore took 
trouble to set the various points, both as to the property and 
the proceedings necessary, before him in the clearest man- 
ner. 

“Thank you,'’ said Gibbie, through Mr. Sclater. “ Please 
remember I am more accountable for this money than you, 
and am compelled to understand.” Janet’s repeated exhorta- 
tions on the necessity of sending for the serpent to take care 
of the dove, had not been lost upon him. 

The lawyer being then quite ready to make him an ad- 
vance of money, they went with him to the bank, where he 
wrote his name, and received a cheque book. As they left 
the bank, he asked the minister whether he would allow him 
to keep his place in his house till the next session, and was 
almost startled at finding how his manner to him was 
changed. He assured Sir Gilbert, with a deference and re- 
spect both painful and amusing, that he hoped he would 
always regard his house as one home, however many besides 
he might now choose to have. 

So now at last Gibbie was free to set about realizing a long- 
cherished scheme. 

The repairs upon the Auld Hoose o’ Galbraith were now 
nearly finished. In consequence of them, some of the tenants 
had had to leave, and Gibbie now gave them all notice 
to quit at their earliest convenience, taking care, however, to 
see them provided with fresh quarters, towards which he 
could himself do not a little, for several of the houses in the 
neighborhood had been bought for him at the same time with 
the old mansion. As soon as it was empty, he set more men 
to work, and as its eternal arrangements had never been 
altered, speedily, out of squalid neglect, caused not a little 
of old stateliness to reappear. He next proceeded to furnish 
at his leisure certain of the rooms, chiefly from the accumu- 
lations of his friend Mistress Murkison. By the time he had 
finished, his usual day for going home had arrived : while 
Janet lived, the cottage on Glashgar was home. Just as he 
was leaving, the minister told him that Glashruach was his. 
Mrs. Sclater was present, and read in his eyes what induced 
her instantly to make the remark : “How could that man 
deprive his daughter of the property he had to take her 
mother’s name to get ! ” 

“ He had misfortunes,” indicated Gibbie, “and could not 
help it, I suppose.” • 


3^4 


SIR GIBBIE. 


‘"Yes indeed!'' she returned, “ — misfortunes so great 
that they amounted to little less than swindling. I wonder 
how many he has brought to grief besides himself ! If he 
had Glashruach once more he would begin it all over again." 

“ Then I’ll give it to Ginevra," said Gibbie. 

“And let her father coax her out of it, and do another 
world of mischief with it ! " she rejoined. 

Gibbie was silent. Mrs. Sclater was right 1 To give is not 
always to bless. He must think of some way. With plenty 
to occupy his powers of devising he set out. 

He would gladly have seen Ginevra before he left, but had 
no chance. He had gone to the North church every Sunday 
for a long time now, neither for love of Fergus, nor dislike to 
Mr. Sclater, but for the sake of seeing his lost friend : had he 
not lost her when she turned from Donal to Fergus ? Did 
she not forsake him too when she forsook his Donal .? His 
heart would rise into his throat at the thought, but only for 
a moment : he never pitied himself. Now and then he had 
from her a sweet sad smile, but no sign that he might go and 
see her. Whether he was to see Donal when he reached 
Daurside, he could not tell ; he had heard nothing of him 
since he went : his mother never wrote letters. 

“ Na, na ; I canna" she would say. “It wad tak a' the 
pith oot o' me to vreet letters. A' 'at I hae to say I sen' the 
up-road ; it’s sure to win hame ear' or late. ” 

Notwithstanding his new power, it was hardly, therefore, 
with his usual elation, that he took his seat on the coach. 
But his reception was the same as ever. At his mother’s 
persuasion, Donal, he found, instead of betaking himself 
again to bodily labors as he had purposed, had accepted a 
situation as tutor offered him by one of the professors. He 
had told his mother all his troubles. 

“ He’ll be a' the better for 't i' the en’,”she said with a 
smile of the deepest sympathy, “though, bein’ my ain, I 
canna help bein’ wae for 'im. But the Lord was i’ the airth- 
quak, an' the fire, an’ the win’ that rave the rocks, though 
the prophet couldna see 'im. Donal 'ill come oot o’ this wi’ 
mair room in’s hert an’ mair licht in’s speerit. " 

Gibbie took his slate from the crap o’ the wa and wrote, 
“If money could do any thing for him, I have- plenty now." 

“I ken yer hert, my bairn, "replied Janet; “but na ; 
siller’s but a deid horse for onything'at smacks o’ salvation. 
Na ; the puir fallow maun warstle oot 6’ the thicket o’ deid 
roses as best he can — sair scrattit, nae doobt. Eh 1 it’s a 
fearfu’ an’ won’erfu’ thing that drawin’ o’ hert to hert, an’ 


OF AGE. 


365 

syne a great snap, an’ a stert back, an’ there’s miles atween 
them ! The Lord alane kens the boddom o’ ’t ; but I’m 
thinkin’ there’s mair intill’t, an’ a heap mair to come oot o’ ’t 
ere a’ be dune, than we hae ony guiss at. ” 

Gibbie told her that Glashruach was his. Then first the 
extent of his wealth seemed to strike his old mother 

“ Eh ! ye’ll be the laird, wull ye, than? Eh, sirs ! To 
think o’ this hoose an’ a’ bein’ wee Gibbie’s ! Weel, it dings 
a’. The w’ys o’ the Lord are to be thoucht upon ! He made 
Dawvid a king, an’ Gibbie he’s made the laird ! Blest be his 
name.” 

“They tell me the mountain is mine,” Gibbie wrote: 
“your husband shall be laird of Glashgarifhe likes.” 

“ Na, na,” said Janet, with a loving look. “He’s ower 
auld for that. He micht na dee sae easy for’t. Eh ! please 
the Lord, I wad fain gang wi’ him. An’ what better wad 
Robert be to be laird ? We pey nae rent as ’tis, an’ he has as 
mony sheep to lo’e as he can weel ken ane frae the ither, noo 
’at he’s growin’ auld, I ken naething ’at he lacks, but Gibbie 
to gang wi’ ’im aboot the hill. A neebour’s laddie comes an’ 
gangs, to help him, but, eh, says Robert, he’s no Gibbie ! — 
But gien Glashruach be yer ain, my bonnie man. ye maun 
gang doon there this verra nicht, and gie a luik to the burn; 
for the last time I was there, I thoucht it was creepin’ in 
aneth the bank some fearsome like for what’s left o’ the auld 
hoose, an’ the suner it’s luikit efter maybe the better. Eh, 
Sir Gibbie, but ye sud merry the bonnie eddy, an’ tak her 
back till her ain hoose.” 

Gibbie gave a great sigh to think of the girl that loved the 
hill and the heather and the burns, shut up in the city, and 
every Sunday going to the great church — with which in Gib- 
bie’s mind was associated no sound of glad tidings. To him 
Glashgar was full of God ; the North church or Mr. Sclater’s 
church — well he had tried hard, but had not succeeded in 
discovering temple signs about either. 

The next day he sent to the city for an architect ; and within 
a week masons and quarrymen were at work, some on the 
hill blasting blue boulders and red granite, others roughly 
shaping the stones, and others laying the foundation of a 
huge facing and buttressing wall, which was to slope up from 
the bed of the Glashburn fifty feet to the foot of the castle, 
there to culminate in a narrow terrace with a parapet. Others 
again were clearing away what of the ruins stuck to the old 
house, in order to leave it, as much as might be, in its origi- 
nal form. There was no space left for rebuilding, neither 


SIR GIBBIE. 


366 

was there any between the two burns for adding afresh. The 
channel of the second remained dry, the landslip continu- 
ing to choke it, and the stream to fall into the Glashburn. 
But Gibbie would not consent that the burn Ginevra had 
loved should sing no more as she had heard it sing. Her 
chamber M^as gone, and could not be restored, but another 
chamber should be built for her, beneath whose window it 
should again run : when she was married to Fergus, and her 
father could not touch it, the place should be hers. More 
masons were gathered, and foundations blasted in the steep 
rock that formed the other bank of the burn. The main point 
in the building was to be a room for Ginevra. He planned it 
himself — with a windowed turret projecting from the wall, 
making a recess in the room, and overhanging the stream. 
The turret he carried a story higher than the wall, and in the 
wall placed a stair leading to its top, whence, over the roof 
of the ancient part of the house, might be seen the 
great Glashgar, and its streams coming down from 
heaven, and singing as they came. Then from the middle 
of the first stair in the old house, the wall, a yard and a half 
thick, having been cut through, a solid stone bridge, with a 
pointing arch, was to lead across the burn to a like landing 
in the new house — a close passage, with an oriel window on 
each side, looking up and down the stream, and a steep roof. 
And while these works were going on below, two masons, 
high on the mountain,, were adding to the cottage a warm 
bedroom for Janet and Robert. 

The architect was an honest man, and kept Gibbie’s secret, 
60 that, although he was constantly about the place, nothing 
disturbed the general belief that Glashruach had been bought, 
and was being made habitable, by a certain magnate of the 
county adjoining. 


CHAPTER LV. 

THE AULD HOOSE o’ GALBRAITH. 

One cold afternoon in the end of October, when Mistress 
Croale was shutting up her shop in the market, and a tumbler 
of something hot was haunting her imagination, Gibbie came 
walking up the long gallery with the light hill-step which he 
never lost, and startled her with a hand on her shoulder, 
making signs that she must come with him. She made haste 


THE AULD HOOSE o' GALBRAITH. 367 

to lock her door, and they walked side by side to the Widdie- 
hill. As they crossed the end of it she cast a look down Jink 
Lane, and thought of her altered condition with a sigh. 
Then the memory of the awful time amongst the sailors, in 
which poor Sambo’s frightful death w^as ever prominent, came 
back like a fog from hell. But so far gone were these times 
now, that, seeing their events more as they really were, she 
looked upon them with incredulous horror, as things in which 
she could hardly have had any part or lot. Then returned 
her wanderings and homeless miseries, when often a haystack 
or a heap of straw in a shed was her only joy — whiskey always 
excepted. Last of all came the dread perils, the hairbreadth 
escapes of her too adventurous voyage on the brander ; — and 
after all these things, here she was, walking in peace by the 
side of wee Sir Gibbie, a friend as strong now as he had always 
been true ! She asked herself, or some power within asked 
her, whence came the troubles that had haunted her life. 
Why had she been marked out for such misfortunes ? Her 
conscience answered — from her persistence in living by the 
sale of drink after she had begun to feel it was wrong. 
Thence it was that she had learned to drink, and that she was 
even now liable, if not to be found drunk in the streets, yet 
to go to bed drunk as any of her former customers. The cold 
crept into her bones ; the air seemed full of blue points and 
clear edges of cold, that stung and cut her. She was a 
wretched, a low creature ! What would her late aunt think to 
see her now ? What if this cold in her bones were the cold of 
coming death ? To lie for ages in her coffin, with her mouth 
full of earth, longing for whiskey ! A verse from the end of 
the New Testament with drtinkards” in it, came to her 

mind. She had always had faith, she said to herself ; but 
let them preach what they liked about salvation by faith, she 
knew there was nothing but hell for her if she were to die that 
night. There was Mistress Murkison looking out of her shop 
door ! She was respected as much as ever ! Would Mistress 
Murkison be saved if she died that night.? At least nobody 
would want her damned ; whereas not a few, and Mr. Sclater 
in particular, would think it no fair play if Mistress Croale 
were not damned ! 

They turned into the close of the Auld Hoose o’ Galbraith. 

“Wee Gibbie’s plottin’ to lead me to repentance !” she said 
to herself. “ He’s gaein’ to shaw me whaur his father dee’d, 
an’ whaur they leevit in sic meesery — a’ throu’ the drink I gae 
’im an’ the respectable hoose I keepit to ’tice him till’t ! He 
wad hae me persuaudit to lea’ aff the drink 1 Weel, I’m a 


SIR GIBBIE. 


368 

heap better nor ance I was, an’ gie’t up I wull a’thegither- -• 
afore it comes to the last wi’ me/’ 

By this time Gibbie was leading her up the dark stair. At 
the top, on a wide hall-like landing, he opened a door. She 
drew back with shy amaze. Her first thought was — “That 
prood madam, the minister’s wife, ’ill be there !” Was affront 
lying in wait for her again .? She looked round angrily at her 
conductor. But his smile re-assured her, and she stepped 
in. 

It was almost a grand room, rich and sombre in color, old- 
fashion in its somewhat stately furniture. A glorious fire was 
blazing and candles were burning. The table was covered 
with a white cloth, and laid for two. Gibbie shut the door, 
placed a chair for Mistress Croale by the fire, seated himself, 
took out his tablets, wrote “Will you be my housekeeper? 
I will give you £100 a year,” and handed them to her. 

“Lord, Sir Gibbie ! ” she cried, jumping to her feet, “ hae 
ye tint yer wuts ? Hoo wad an auld wife like me luik in sic a 
place — an’ in sic duds as this ? It wad gar Sawtan lauch, an’ 
that he can but seldom.” 

Gibbie rose, and taking her by the hand, led her to the 
door of an adjoining room. It was a bedroom, as grand as 
the room they had left, and if Mistress Croale was surprised 
before, she was astonished now. A fire was burning here 
too, candles were alight on the dressing-table, a hot bath 
stood ready, on the bed lay a dress of rich black satin, with 
linen and everything down, or up, to collars, cuffs, mittens, 
cap, and shoes. All these things Gibbie had bought himself, 
using the knowledge he had gathered in shopping with Mrs. 
Sclater, and the advice of her dressmaker, whom he had 
taken into his confidence, and who had entered heartily into 
his plan. He made signs to Mistress Croale that everything 
there was at her service, and left her. 

Like one in a dream she yielded to the rush of events, not 
too much bewddered to dress with care, and neither too old 
nor too wicked nor too ugly to find pleasure in it. She 
might have been a born lady just restored to the habits of 
her youth, to judge by her delight over the ivory brushes 
and tortoise-shell comb, and great mirror. In an hour or so 
she made her appearance — I can hardly say reappeared, she 
was so altered. She entered the room neither blushing nor 
smiling, but wiping the tears from her eyes like a too blessed 
child. What Mrs. Sclater would have felt, I dare hardly 
think; for there was “the horrid woman” arrayed as nearly 


THE AULD HOOSE o' GALBRAITH. 


369 

after her fashion as Gibbie had been able to get her up I A 
very good “get up’’ nevertheless it was, and satisfactory to 
both concerned. Mistress Croale went out a decent-looking 
poor body, and entered a not uncomely matron of the house- 
keeper class, rather agreeable to look upon, who had just 
stood a nerve-shaking but not unpleasant surprise, and was 
recovering. Gibbie was so satisfied with her appearance that 
come of age as he was, and vagrant no more, he first danced 
round her several times with a candle in his hand, much to 
the danger but nowise to the detriment of her finery, then set 
it down, and executed his old lavolta of delight, which, as 
always, he finished by standing on one leg. 

They then sat down to a nice nondescript meal, also of 
Gibbie’s own providing. 

When their meal was ended, he went to a bureau, and 
brought thence a paper, plainly written to this effect ; 

“I agree to do whatever Sir Gilbert Galbraith may require 
of me, so long as it shall not be against my conscience ; and 
consent that, if I taste whisky once, he shall send me away 
immediately, without further reason given.” 

He handed it to Mistress Croale ; she read, and instantly 
looked about for pen and ink : she dreaded seeming for a 
moment to hesitate. He brought them to her, she signed, 
and they shook hands. 

He then conducted her all over the house — first to the 
rooms prepared for his study and bedroom, and next to the 
room in the garret, which he had left just as it was when his 
father died in it. There he gave her a look by which he meant 
to say, “See what whisky brings people to!” but which her 
conscience interpreted, “See what you brought my father to 1” 
Next, on the floor between, he showed her a number of bed- 
rooms, all newly repaired and fresh-painted, — with double win- 
dows, the inside ones filled with frosted glass. These rooms, he 
gave her to understand, he wished her to furnish, getting as 
many things as she could from Mistress Murkison. Going back 
then to the sitting-room, he proceeded to explain his plans, 
telling her he had furnished the house that he might not any 
longer be himself such a stranger as to have no place to take 
a stranger to. Then he got a Bible tb.ere was in the room, 
and showed her those words in the book of Exodus — “also, 
thou shalt not oppress a stranger ; for ye know the heart of a 
stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt ; ” and 
while she thought again of her wanderings through the coun- 
try, and her nights in the open air, made her understand that 
whomsoever he should at any time bring home she was to 


SIR GIBBIE. 


'370 

treat as his guest. She might get a servant to wait upon her- 
self, he said, but she must herself help him to wait upon his 
guest, in the name of the Son of Man. 

She expressed hearty acquiescence, but would not hear of 
a servant : the more work the better for her ! she said. She 
would to-morrow arrange for giving up her shop and dispos- 
ing of her stock and the furniture in her garret. But Gibbie 
requested the keys of both those places. Next, he insisted 
that she should never utter a word as to the use he intended 
making of his house ; if the thing came out, it would ruin 
his plans, and he must give them up altogether — and there- 
upon he took her to the ground floor and showed her a door 
in communication with a poor little house behind, by which 
he intended to introduce and dismiss his guests, that they 
should not know where they had spent the night. Then he 
made her read to him the hundred and seventh Psalm ; after 
which he left her, saying he would come to the house as soon 
as the session began, which would be in a week ; until then 
he should be at Mr. Sclater s. 

Left alone in the great house — like one with whom the 
most beneflcent of fairies had been busy, the first thing 
Mistress Croale did was to go and have a good look at herself 
from head to foot — in the same mirror that had enlightened 
Donal as to his outermost man. Very different was the re- 
reflection it caused in Mistress Croale : she was satisfied with 
everything she saw there, except her complexion, and that 
she resolved should improve. She was almost painfully 
happy. Out there was the Widdiehill, dark and dismal and 
cold, through which she had come, sad and shivering and 
haunted with miserable thoughts, into warmth and splendor 
and luxury and bliss ! Wee Sir Gibbie had made a lady of 
her ! If only poor Sir George were alive to see and share ! — 
There was but one thing wanted to make it a Paradise indeed 
— a good tumbler of toddy by the fire before she went to 
bed ! 

Then first she thought of the vow she had made as she 
signed the paper, and shuddered — not at the thought of 
breaking it, but at the thought of keeping it, and no help — 
No help ! it was the easiest thing in the world to get a bottle 
of whiskey. She had but to run to Jink Lane at the farthest 
to her own old house, which, for all Mr. Sclater, was a 
whiskey shop yet ! She had emptied her till, and had money 
in her pocket. Who was there to tell } She would not have 
a chance when Sir Gibbie came home to her. She must 
make use of what time was left her. She was safe now from 


THE LAIRD AND THE PREACHER. 


371 


going too far, because she must give it up ; ’and why not then 
have one farewell night of pleasure, to bid a last good-bye to 
her old friend Whiskey? What should she have done without 
him, lying in the cold wind by a dykeside, or going down 
the Daur like a shot on her brander? Thus the tempting 
passion ; thus, for aught I know, a tempting devil at the ear 
of her mind as well. Cut with that came the face of Gibbie ; 
she thought how troubled that face would look if she failed 
him. What a lost, irredeemable wretch was she about to 
make of herself after all he had done for her ! No ; if 
whiskey was heaven, and the want of it was hell, she would 
not do it ! She ran to the door, locked it, brought away the 
key, and laid it under the Bible from which she had been 
reading to Sir Gibbie. Perhaps she might have done better 
than betake herself again to her finery, but it did help her 
through the rest of the evening, and she went to her grand 
bed not only sober, but undefiled of the enemy. When Gib- 
bie came to her a week after, he came to a true woman, one 
who had kept faith with him. 


CHAPTER LVI. 

THE LAIRD AND THE PREACHER. 

Since he came to town, Gibbie had seen Ginevra but once 
— that was in the North church. She looked so sad and 
white that his heart was very heavy for her. Could it be that 
she repented ? She must have done it to please her father 1 
If she would marry Donal, he would engage to give her 
Glashruach. She should have Glashruach all the same what- 
ever she did, only it might influence her father. He paced 
up and down before the cottage once for a whole night, but 
no good came of that. He paced before it from dusk to bed- 
time again and again, in the poor hope of a chance of speak- 
ing to Ginevra, but he never saw even her shadow on the 
white blind. He went up to the door once, but in the dread 
of displeasing her lost his courage, and paced the street the 
whole morning instead, but saw no one come out. 

Fergus had gradually become essential to the small remain- 
ing happiness of which the laird was capable. He had 
gained his. favor chiefly through the .respect and kindly at- 
.tention he showed him. The young preacher knew little of 
-the laird's- career, and looked- upon him as .an unfortunate 


SIR .GIBCIE. 


372 ’ 

man, towards whom loyalty now required even a greater show 
of respect than while he owned his father’s farm, d'he im- 
pulse transmitted to him from the devotion of ancestors to 
the patriarchal head of the clan, had found blind vent in the 
direction of the mere feudal superior, and both the impulse 
and its object remained. He felt honored, even now that he 
had reached the goal of his lofty desires and was a popular 
preacher, in being permitted to play backgammon with the 
great man, or to carve a chicken, when the now trembling 
hands, enfeebled far more through anxiety and disappoint- 
ment than from age,, found themselves unequal to the task ; 
the laird had begun to tell long stories, and drank twice as 
much as he did a year ago ; he was sinking in more ways 
than one. 

Fergus at length summoned courage to ask him if he might 
pay his addresses to Miss Galbraith. The old man started, 
cast on him a withering look, murmured “The heiress of 
Glashruach ! ” remembered, threw himself back in his chair, 
and closed his eyes. Fergus, on the other side of the table, 
sat erect, a dice-box in his hand, waiting a reply. The 
father reflected that if he declined what he could not call an 
honor, he must lose what was unquestionably a comfort ; 
how was he to pass all the evenings of the week without the 
preacher.? On the other hand, if he accepted him, he might 
leave the miserable cottage, and go to the manse ; from a 
moral point of view — that was, from the point of other peo- 
ple’s judgment of him — it would be of consequence to have 
a clergyman for a son-in-law. Slowly he raised himself in 
his chair, opened his unsteady eyes that rolled and pitched 
like boats on a choppy sea, and said solemnly : 

“You have my permission, Mr. Duff.” 

The young preacher hastened to find Ginevra, but only to 
meet a refusal, gentle and sorrowful. He pleaded for per- 
mission to repeat his request after an interval, but she dis- 
tinctly refused. She did not, however, succeed in making a 
man with such a large opinion of himself hopeless. Dis- 
appointed and annoyed he was, but besought and fancied he 
found reasons for her decision which were not unfavorable to 
himself, and continued to visit her father as before, saying to 
him he had not quite succeeded in drawing from her a favor- 
able answer, but hoped to prevail. He nowise acted the de- 
spairing lover, but made grander sermons than ever, and, as 
he came to feel at home in his pulpit, delivered them with 
growing force. But delay wrought desire in the laird ; and 
at length, one evening, having by cross-questioning satis- 


THE LAIRD AND THE PREACHER. 373 

fied himself that Fergus made no progress, he rose, and going 
to his desk, handed him Donal’s verses. Fergus read them, 
and remarked he had read better, but the first stanza had a 
slight flavor of Shelley. 

“ I don’t care a straw about their merit or demerit,” said 
Mr. Galbraith; “ poetry is nothing but spoilt prose. What 
I want to know is, whether they do not suggest a reason for 
your want of success with Jenny. Do you know the writing ? ” 

“ I cannot say I do. But I think it is very likely that of 
Donal Grant ; he sets up for the Burns of Daurside.” 

*‘ Insolent scoundrel ! ” cried the laird, bringing down his 
fist on the table, and fluttering the wine glasses. “Next to 
superstition I hate romance — with my whole heart I do ! ” 
And something like a flash of cold moonlight on wintred 
water gleamed over, rather than shot from, his poor focusless 
eyes. 

“But, my dear sir,” said Fergus, “if I am to understand 
these lines ” 

“Yes ! if you are to understand where there is no sense 
whatever ! ” 

“I think I understand them — if you will excuse me for 
venturing to say so ; and what I read in them is, that who- 
ever the writer may be, the lady, whoever she may be, had 
refused him.” 

“You cannot believe that the wretch had the impudence 

to make my . daughter — the heiress of — at least What! 

make my daughter an offer I She would at once have 
acquainted me with the fact, that he might receive suitable 
chastisement. Let me look at the stuff again.” 

“It is quite possible,” said Fergus, “it may be only a 
poem some friend has copied for her from a newspaper.” 

While he spoke, the laird was reading the lines, and per- 
suading himself he understood them. With sudden resolve, 
the paper held torch-like in front of him, he strode into the 
next room, where Ginevra sat. 

“Do you tell me,” he said fiercely, that you have so far 
forgotten all dignity and propriety as to give a dirty cow-boy 
the encouragement to make you an offer of marriage .? The 
very notion sets my blood boiling. You will make me hate 
you, you — you — unworthy creature ! ” 

Ginevra had turned white, but looking him straight in the 
face, she answered. 

“ If that is a letter for me, you know I have not read it.” 

“There! see for yourself. Poetry!” He uttered the 
word with contempt inexpressible. 


374 


SIR GIBBIE. 


She took the verses from his hand and read them. "Even 
with her father standing there, watching her like an inquisitor, 
she could not help the tears coming in her eyes as she read. 

“There is no such thing here, papa,'’ she said. “They 
are only verses — bidding me good-bye.” 

“And what right has any such fellow to bid my daughter 
good-bye .? Explain that to me, if you please. Of course I 
have been for many years aware of your love of low company, 
but I had hoped as you grew older you would learn manners : 
modesty would have been too much to look for. If you had 
nothing to be ashamed of, why did you not tell me of the 
unpleasant affair.? Is not your father your best friend .?•” 

“Why should I make both him and you uncomfortable, 
papa — when there was not going to be anything more of it .? ” 

“Why then do you go hankering after him still, and refus- 
ing Mr. Duff.? It is true he is not exactly a gentleman by 
birth, but he is such by education, by manners, by position, 
by influence.” 

“Papa, I have already told Mr. Duff, as plainly as I could 
without being rude, that I would never let him talk to me so. 
What lady would refuse Donal Grant and listen to him ! ” 

“ You are a bold, insolent hussy ! ” cried her father in fresh 
rage, and leaving the room rejoined Fergus, 

They sat silent both for a while — then the preacher spoke. 

“ Other communications may have reached her from the 
same quarter,” he said. 

“That is impossible,” rejoined the laird. 

“ I don’t know that,” insisted Fergus. “ There is a foolish 
— a half-silly companion of his about town. They call him 
Sir Gibbie Galbraith.” 

“Jenny knows no such person.” 

“ Indeed she does. I have seen them together.” 

“Oh ! you mean the lad the minister adopted ! the urchin 
he took off the streets ! — Sir Gibbie Galbraith ! ” he repeated 
sneeringly, but as one reflecting. “ — I do vaguely recall a 
slanderous rumor in which a certain female connection of the 
family was hinted at — Yes ! that’s where the nick-name comes 
from. And you think she keeps up a communication with 
the clown through him .? ” 

“ I don’t say that, sir. I merely think it possible she may 
see this Gibbie occasionally ; and I know he worships the 
cow-boy : it is a positive feature of his foolishness, and I wish 
it were the worst.” 

Therewith he told what he heard from Miss Kimble, and 


THE LAIRD AND THE PREACHER. 375 

what he had seen for himself on the night when he watched 
Gibbie. 

‘‘Her very blood must be tainted ! ” said her father to him- 
self, but added, “ — from her mother’s side ; ” and his attacks 
upon her after this were at least diurnal. It was a relief to his 
feeling of having wronged her, to abuse her with justice. For 
a while she tried hard to convince him now that this, now 
that that notion of her conduct, or of Gibbie’s or Donal’s was 
mistaken : he would listen to nothing she said, continually 
insisting that the only amends for her past was to marry ac- 
cording to his wishes ; to give up superstition, and poetry 
and cow-boys, and dumb rascals, and settle down into a re- 
spectable matron, a comfort to the gray hairs she was now 
bringing with sorrow to the grave. Then Ginevra became 
absolutely silent ; he had taught her that any reply was but 
a new start for his objurgation, a knife wherewith to puncture 
a fresh gall-bladder of abuse. He stormed at her for her 
sullenness, but she persisted in her silence, sorely distressed to 
find how dead her heart seemed growing under his treatment 
of her : what would at one time have made her utterly 
miserable, now passed over her as one of the billows of a 
trouble that had to be borne, as one of the throbs of a head- 
ache, drawing from her scarcely a sigh. She did not under- 
stand that, her heaven being dark, she could see no indi- 
vidual cloud against it ; that, her emotional nature untuned, 
distord itself had ceased to jar. 


376 


SIR GIBBIE. 


CHAPTER EVIL 

A HIDING-PLACE FROM THE WIND. 

Gibbie found everything at the Auld Hoose in complete - 
order for his reception : Mistress Croale had been very dili- 
gent, and promised well for a housekeeper — looked well, too 
in her black satin and lace, with her complexion, she justly 
flattered herself, not a little improved. She had a good meal 
ready for him, with every adjunct in proper style, during the 
preparation of which she had revelled in the thought that some 
day, when she had quite established her fitness for her new 
position. Sir Gibbie would certainly invite the minister and 
his lady to dine with him, when she, whom they were too 
proud to ask to partake of their cockie-leekie, would show 
them she knew both what a dinner ought to be, and how to 
preside at it ; and the soup it should be cockie-leekie. 

Everything went comfortably. Gibbie was so well up in 
mathematics, thanks to Mr. Sclater, that doing all requisite 
for honorable studentship, but having no desire to distin- 
guish himself, he had plenty of time for more important 
duty. Now that he was by himself, as if old habit had re- 
turned in the shape of new passion, he roamed the streets 
every night. His custom was this : after dinner, which he 
had when he came from college, about half-past-four, he lay 
down, fell asleep in a moment, as he always did, and slept 
till half-past six ; then he had tea, and after that, studied 
— not dawdled over his books, till ten o’clock, when he 
took his Greek Testament. At eleven he went out, seldom 
finally returning before half-past one, sometimes not for an 
hour longer — during which time Mistress Croale was in readi- 
ness to receive any guest he might bring home. 

The history of the special endeavor he had now commenced 
does not belong to my narrative. Some nights, many nights 
together, he would not meet a single wanderer ; occasionally 
he would meet two or three in the same night. When he 
found one, he would stand regarding him until he spoke. If 
the man was drunk he would leave him : such were not those 
for whom he could now do most. If he was sober he made 
him signs of invitation. If he would not go with him, he 


A HIDING PLACE FROM THE WIND. 


377 


left him, but kept him in view, and tried him again. If still 
he would not, he gave him a piece of bread, and left him. If 
he called, he stopped, and by circuitious ways brought him 
to the little house at the back. It was purposely quite dark. 
If the man was too apprehensive to enter he left him ; if he 
followed, he led him to Mistress Croale. If anything sug- 
gested the possibility of helping further, a possibility turning 
entirely on the person’s self, the attempt was set on foot ; but 
in general, after a good breakfast, Gibbie led him through a 
dark passage into the darkened house, and dismissed him from 
the door by which he had entered. He never gave money, 
and never sought such guest except in the winter. Indeed, 
he was never in the city in the summer. Before the session 
was over, they had one woman and one girl in a fair way of 
honest livelihood, and one small child, whose mother had an 
infant besides, and was evidently dying, he had sent “in a 
present’ to Janet, by the hand of Mistress Murkison. Al- 
together it was a tolerable beginning, and during the time not 
a word reached him indicating knowledge of his proceedings, 
although within a week or two a rumor was rife in the 
lower parts of the city, of a mysterious being who went 
about doing this and that for poor folk, but, notwithstanding, 
his gifts were far from canny. 

Mr. and IMrs. Sclater could not fail to be much annoyed 
Avhen they found he was no longer lodging with Mistress 
Murkison, but occupying the Auld Hoose, with “that horrible 
woman” for a housekeeper ; they knew, however, that expos- 
tulation with one possessed by such a headstrong sense of 
duty was utterly useless, and contented themselves with pre- 
dicting to each other some terrible check, the result of his 
ridiculous theory concerning what was required of a Christian 
— namely, that the disciple should be as his Master. At the 
same time Mrs. Sclater had a sacred suspicion that no real ill 
would ever befall God’s innocent, Gilbert Galbraith. 

Fergus had now with his father’s help established himself 
in the manse of the North Church, and thither he invited Mr. 
and Miss Galbraith to dine with him on a certain evening. 
Fler father’s absolute desire compelled Ginevra’s assent ; she 
could not, while with him, rebel absolutely. Fergus did his 
best to make the evening a pleasant one, and had special 
satisfaction in showing the laird that he could provide both a 
good dinner and a good bottle of port. Two of his congre- 
gation, a young lawyer and his wife, were the only other 
guests. The laird found the lawyer an agreeable companion, 
chiefly from his readiness to listen to his old law stories, and 


SIR GIBBIE. 


378 

Fergus laid himself out to please the two ladies : secure of 
the admiration of one, he hoped it might help to draw the 
favor of the other. He had conceived the notion that Ginevra 
probably disliked his profession, and took pains therefore to 
show how much he was a man of the world — talked about 
Shakspere, and flaunted rags of quotation in elocutionary 
style ; got books from his study, and read passages from 
Byron, Shelley, and Moore — chiefly from “The Loves of 
the Angels” of the last, ecstasizing the lawyer’s lady, and 
interesting Ginevra, though all he read taken together seemed 
to her unworthy of comparison with one of poor Donal’s 
songs. 

It grew late. The dinner had been at a fashionable hour ; 
they had stayed an unfashionable time : it was nearly twelve 
o’clock when guests and host left the house in company. The 
lawyer and his wife went one way, and Fergus went the other 
with the laird and Ginevra. 

Hearing the pitiful wailing of a child and the cough of a 
woman, as they went along a street bridge, they peeped over 
the parapet, and saw, upon the stair leading to the lower street, 
a woman, with a child asleep in her lap, trying to eat a piece of 
bread, and coughing as if in the last stage of consumption. 
On the next step below sat a man hushing in his bosom the 
baby whose cry they had heard. They stood for a moment, 
the minister pondering whether his profession required of him 
action, and Ginevra’s gaze fixed on the head and shoulders 
of the foreshortened figure of the man, who vainly as patiently 
sought to soothe the child by gently rocking it to and fro. 
But when he began a strange humming song to it, which 
brought all Glashgar before her eyes, Ginevra knew beyond 
a doubt that it was Gibbie. At the sound the child ceased 
to wail, and presently the woman with difficulty rose, laying 
a hand for help on Gibbie’s shoulder. Then Gibbie rose also, 
cradling the infant on his left arm, and making signs to the 
mother to place the child on his right. She did so, and turn- 
ing, went feebly up the stair. Gibbie followed with the two 
children, one lying on his arm, the other with his head on his 
shoulder, both wretched and pining, with gray cheeks, and 
dark hollows under their eyes. From the top of the stair 
they went slowly up the street, the poor woman coughing, 
and Gibbie crooning to the baby, who cried no more, but 
now and then moaned. Then Fergus said to the laird : 

‘ ‘ Did you see that young man, sir ? That is the so-called Sir 
Gilbert Galbraith we were talking of the other night. They 


A HIDING PLACE FROM THE WIND. 


379 


say lie has come into a good property, but you may judge for 
yourself whether he seems fit to manage it V’ 

Ginevra withdrew her hand from his arm. 

“Good God, Jenny!’’ exclaimed the laird, “you do not 
mean to tell me you have ever spoken to a youns: man like 
that?” 

“ I know him very well, papa,” replied Ginevra, collectedly. 

“You are incomprehensible, Jenriy ! If you know him, 
why do I not know him ? If you had not known good 
reason to be ashamed of him, you would, one time or other, 
have mentioned his name in my hearing. — I ask you, and I 
demand an answer,” — here he stopped, and fronted her — 
“why have you concealed from me your acquaintance with 
this — this — person ?” 

“ Because I thought it might be painful to you, papa,” she 
answered, looking in his face. 

“ Painful to me I Why should it be painful to me — except 
indeed that it breaks my heart as often as I see you betray 
)'Our invincible fondness for low company?” 

“Do you desire me to tell you, papa, why I thought it 
might be painful to you to make that young man’s acquaint- 
•ance ? 

“ I do distinctly. I command you.” 

“Then I will : that young man. Sir Gilbert Galbraith, ” 

“Nonsense, girl! there is no such Galbraith. It is the 
merest of scolfs.” 

Ginevra did not care to argue with him this point. In 
truth she knew little more about it than he. 

“Many years ago,” she recommenced, “when I was a 
child, — Excuse me, Mr. .Duff, but it is quite time I told my 
father what has been weighing upon my mind for so many 
years. ” 

“Sir Gilbert I” muttered her father contemptuously. 

“One day,” again she began, “Mr. Fergus Duff brought a 
ragged little boy to Glashruach — the most innocent and lov- 
ing of creatures, who had committed no crime but that of 
doing good in secret. I saw Mr. Duff box his ears on the 
bridge ; and you, papa, gave him over to that wretch, Angus 
Mac Pholp, to whip him — so at least Angus told me, after he 
had whipped him till he dropped senseless. I can hardly 
keep from screaming now when I think of it.” 

“All this, Jenny, is nothing less than cursed folly. Do 
you mean to tell me you have all these years been cherishing 
resentment against your own father, for the sake of a little 
thieving rascal, whom it was a good deed to fright from the 


380 


SIR GIBBIE. 


error of his ways ? I have no doubt Angus gave him merely 
what he deserved.” 

“You must remember, Miss Galbraith, w'e did not know 
he was dumb,” said Fergus, humbly. 

“If you had had any heart,” said Ginevra, “ you w'ould 
have seen in his face that he was a perfect angelic child. He 
ran to the mountain, without a rag to cover his bleeding 
body, and would have died of cold and hunger, had not the 
Grants, the parents of your father s herd-boy, Mr. Duff, taken 
him to their hearts, and been father and mother to him.” — 
Ginevra’s mouth was opened at last. — “After that,” she went 
on, “Angus, that bad man, shot him like a wild beast, w'hen 
he was quietly herding Robert Grant’s sheep. In return Sir 
Gilbert saved his life in the flood. And just before the house 
of Glashruach fell — the part in which my room was, he 
caught me up, because he could not speak, and carried me 
out of it ; and when I told you that he had saved my life, 
you ordered him out of the house, and when he was afraid 
to leave me alone with you, dashed him against the wall, and 
sent for Angus to whip him again. But I should have liked 
to see Angus try it then ! ” 

“I do remember an insolent fellow taking advantage of 
the ruinous state the house was in, to make his way into my 
study,” said the laird. 

“And now,” Ginevra continued, “Mr. Duff makes ques- 
tion of his wits because he finds him carrying a poor 
woman’s children, going to get them a bed somewhere ! If 
Mr. Duff had run about the streets when he was a child, like 
Sir Gilbert, he might not perhaps, think it so strange he 
should care about a houseless woman and her brats !” 

Therewith Ginevra burst into tears. 

“Abominably disagreeable!” muttered the laird. “I 
always thought she was an idiot 1 — Hold your tongue, Jenny, 
you will wake the street. All you say may or may not be 
quite true ; I do not say you are telling lies, or even exagger- 
ating ; but I see nothing in it to prove the lad a fit companion 
for a young lady. Very much to the contrary. I suppose 
he told you he was your injured, neglected, ill-used cousin ? 
He may be your cousin : you may have any number of such 
cousins, if half the low tales concerning your mother’s family 
be true.” ^ 

Ginevra did not answer him — did not speak another word. 
When Fergus left them at their own door, she neither shook 
hands with him nor bade him good night. 

“Jenny,” said her father, the moment he was gone, “if I 


THE CONFESSION. 


381 

hear of your once speaking again to that low vagabond, — and 
now I think of it” he cried, interrupting himself with a sud- 
den recollection, “there was a cobbler-fellow in the town 
here they used to call Sir Somebody Galbraith ! — that must 
be his father ! Whether the Sir was title or nickname, I 
neither know nor care. A title without money is as bad as 
as a saintship without grace. But this I tell you, that if I 
hear of your speaking one word, good or bad, to the fellow 
again, I will, I swear to Almighty God, I will turn you out 
of the house.” 

To Ginevra’s accumulated misery, she carried with her to 
her room a feeling of contempt for her father, with which she 
lay struggling in vain half the night. 


CHAPTER LVIII. 

THE CONFESSION. 

Although Gibbie had taken no notice of the laird’s party, 
he had recognized each ‘of the three as he came up the stair, 
and in Ginevra’s face read an appeal for deliverance. It 
seemed to say, “You help everybody but me ! Why do you 
not come and help me too ? Am I to have no pity because I 
am neither hungry nor cold ? ” He did not, however, lie 
awake the most of the night, or indeed a single hour of it, 
thinking what he should do ; long before the poor woman 
and her children were in bed, he had made up his mind. 

As soon as he came home from college the next day and 
had hastily eaten his dinner, going upon his vague knowledge 
of law business lately acquired, he bought a stamped paper, 
wrote upon it, and put it in his pocket ; then he took a card 
and wrote on it : Sir Gilbert Galbraith, Baronet, of Glash-^ 
ruach, and put that in his pocket also. Thus provided, and 
having said to Mistress Croale that he should not be home 
that night — for he expected to set off almost imediately in. 
search of Donal, and had bespoken horses, he walked deliber- 
ately along Pearl-street out into the suburb, and turning to 
the right, rang the bell at the garden gate of the laird’s cot- 
tage. When the girl came, he gave her his card, and fol- 
lowed her into the house. She carried it into the room 
where, dinner over, the laird and the preacher were sitting, 
with a bottle of the same port which had pleased the laird at 
the manse between them. Giving time, as he judged, and no 


SIR GIBBIE. 


382 

more, to read the card, Gibbie entered the room : he would 
not risk a refusal to see him. 

It was a small room with a round table. The laird sat 
sideways to the door ; the preacher sat between the table and 
the fire. 

‘ ‘ What the devil does this mean ? A vengeance take him ! ” 
cried the laird. 

His big tumbling eyes had required more time than Gib- 
bie had allowed, so that, when with this exclamation he 
lifted them from the card, they fell upon the object of his im- 
precation standing in the middle of the room between him 
and the open door. The preacher, snug behind the table, 
scarcely endeavoured to conceal the smile with which he took 
no notice of Sir Gilbert. The laird rose in the perturbation 
of mingled anger and unpreparedness. 

“Ah !" he said, but it was only a sound not a word, “to 
what — may I ask— have I— I have not the honor of your ac- 
quaintance, Mr. — Mr. — ” Here he looked again at the card 
he held, fumbled for and opened a double eyeglass, then 
with deliberation examined the name upon it, thus gaining 
time by rudeness, and gathering his force for more, while 
Gibbie remained as unembarrassed as if he had been standing 
to his tailor for his measure. “ Mr. — ah, I see ! Galbraith, 
you say. — To what, Mr., Mr.” — another look at the card — ■ 
“ Galbraith, do I owe the honor of this unexpected — and — ' 
and — I must say — un — looked-for visit — and at such an 
unusual hour for making a business call — for business, I pre- 
sume, it must be that brings you, seeing I have not the honor 
of the slightest acquaintance with you ? ” 

He dropped his eyeglass with a clatter against his waistcoat, 
threw the card into his finger-glass, raised his pale eyes, and 
stared at Sir Gilbert with all the fixedness they were capable 
of. He had already drunk a good deal of wine, and it was 
plain he had,, although he was far from being overcome bv it. 
Gibbie answered by drawing from the breast-pocket of his coat 
the paper he had written, and presenting it like a petition, 
hlr. Galbraith sneered, and would not have touched it had 
not his eye caught the stamp, which from old habit at once 
drew his hand. From similar habit, or perhaps to get it 
nearer the light, he sat down. Gibbie stood, and Fergus 
stared at him with insolent composure. The laird read, but 
not aloud : I, Gilbert Galbraith, Baronet, hereby promise and 
undertake to transfer to Miss Galbraith, only daughter of 
Thomas Galbraith, Esq., on the day when she shall be 
married to Donal Grant, Master of Arts, the whole of the title 


THE CONFESSION. 


383 

deeds of the house and lands of Glashruach, to have and to 
hold as hers, with absolute power to dispose of the same as 
she may see fit. Gilbert Galbraith, Old House of Galbraith, 
Widdiehill, March, etc., etc. 

The laird stretched his neck like a turkeycock, and gobbled 
inarticulately, threw the paper to Fergus, and turning on his 
chair, glowered at Gibbie. Then suddenly starting to his 
feet, he cried, 

“What do you mean, you rascal, by daring to insult me in 
my own house ? Damn your insolent foolery ! ” 

“ A trick ! a most palpable trick ! and an exceedingly silly 
one ! ” pronounced Fergus, who had now read the paper ; 
“ quite as foolish as unjustifiable ! Everybody knows Glash- 
ruach is the property of Major Culsalmon ! ” — Here the laird 
sought the relief of another oath or two. — “ I entreat you to 
moderate your anger, my dear sir,’' Fergus resumed. “ The 
thing is hardly worth so much indignation. Some animal 
has been playing the poor fellow an ill-natured trick — putting 
him up to it for the sake of a vile practical joke. It is exceed- 
ingly provoking, but you must forgive him. He is hardly to 
blame, scarcely accountable, under the natural circumstances. 
— Get away with you,” he added, addressing Gibbie across 
the table. “Make haste before worse comes of it. You 
have been made a fool of.” 

When Fergus began to speak, the laird turned, and while 
he spoke stared at him with lack-lustre yet gleaming eyes, 
until he addressed Gibbie, when he turned on him again as 
fiercely as before. Poor Gibbie stood shaking his head, 
smiling, and making eager signs with hands and arms ; but 
in the laird’s condition of both heart and brain he might well 
forget and fail to be reminded that Gibbie was dumb. 

“Why don’t you speak, you fool ? ” he cried. “Get out 
and don’t stand making faces there. Be off with you, or I 
will knock you down with a decanter.” 

Gibbie pointed to the paper, which lay before Fergus, and 
placed a hand first on his lips, then on his heart. 

“Damn your mummery!” said the laird, choking with 
rage. “ Go away, or, by God I I will break your head.” 

Fergus at this rose and came round the table to get be- 
tween them. But the laird caught up a pair of nutcrackers, 
and threw it at Gibbie. It struck him on the forehead, and 
the blood spirted from the wound. He staggered backwards. 
Fergus seized the laird’s arm, and sought to pacify him. 

Her father’s loud tones had reached Ginevra in her room ; 
she ran down, and that_ instant entered : Gibbie all but fell 


SIR GIBBIE. 


5S4 

into her arms. The moment’s support she gave him, and the 
look of loving terror she cast in his face, restored him : and 
he was again hrm on his feet, pressing her handkerchief to 
his forehead, when Fergus, leaving the laird, advanced with 
the pacific intention of getting him safe from the house. 
Ginevra stepped between them. Her father’s rage there- 
upon broke loose quite, and was madness. He seized 
hold of her with violence, and dragged her from the room. 
Fergus laid hands upon Gibbie more gently, and half would 
have forced, half persuaded him to go. A cry came from 
Ginevra : refusing to be sent to her room before Gibbie was 
in safety, her father struck her. Gibbie would have darted to 
her help. Fergus held him fast, but knew nothing of Gib- 
bie’s strength, and the next moment found himself on his 
back upon the table, amidst the crash of wineglasses and 
china. Having locked the door, Gibbie sprung to the laird 
who was trying to drag his daughter, now hardly resisting, 
up the first steps of the stair, took him round the waist from 
behind, swept him to the other room, and there locked him 
up also. He then returned to Ginevra where she lay motion- 
less on the stair, lifed her in his arms, and carried her out of 
the house, nor stopped until, having reached the farther end 
of the street, he turned the corner of it into another equally 
quiet. 

The laird and Fergus, when they were released by the girl 
from their respective prisons and found that the enemy was 
gone, imagined that Ginevra had retired again to her room ; 
and what they did after is not interesting. 

Under a dull smoky oil-lamp Gibbie stopped. He knew 
by the tightening of her arms that Ginevra was coming to her- 
self. 

“ Let me down,” she said feebly. 

He did so, but kept his arm round her. She gave a deep 
sigh, and gazed bewildered. When she saw him, she smiled. 

“ With Gibbie ! ” she murmured. “ — But they will be 

after us ! ” 

“ They shall not touch you,” signified Gibbie. 

What was it all about? ” she asked. 

Gibbie spelled on his fingers, 

“Because I offered to give you Glashruach, if your father 
would let you marry Donal. ” 

“Gibbie ! how could you?” she cried almost in a scream, 
and pushing away his arm, turned from him and tried to run, 
but after two steps, tottered to the lamp-post, and leaned 
against it— with such a scared look ! 


THE CONFESSION. 


385 

*‘Then come with me and be my sister, Ginevra, and I 
will take care of you,” spelled Gibbie. “lean do nothing 
to take care of you while I can’t get near you.” 

“Oh, Gibbie I nobody does like that,” returned Ginevra, 
“ — else I should be so glad ! ” 

“There is no other way then that I know. You won’t 
marry anybody, you see. ” 

“Won’t I, Gibbie? What makes you think that ? ” 

“Because of course you would never refuse Donal and 
marry anybody else; that is not possible.” 

“ Oh ! don’t tease me, Gibbie.” 

“ Ginevra, you don’t mean you would?” 

In the dull light, and with the imperfect means of Gibbie 
for the embodiment of his thoughts, Ginevra misunderstood 
him. 

“Yes, Gibbie,” she said, “I would. I thought it was 
understood between us, ever since that day you found me on 
Glashgar. In my thoughts I have been yours all the time.” 

She turned her face to the lamp-post. But Gibbie made 
her look. 

“You do not mean, ” he spelled very hurriedly, “ that you 
would marry me/^ — J/cP I never dreamed of such a thing! ” 
You didn’t mean it then!” said Ginevra, with a cry — • 
bitter but feeble with despair and ending in a stifled shriek. 
“What have I been saying then ! I thought I belonged to 
you ! I thought you meant to take me all the time ! She 
burst into an agony of sobbing. “Oh me! me I I have 
been alone all the time, and did not know it ! ” 

She sank on the pavement at the foot of the lamp-post, 
weeping sorely, and shaken with her sobs. Gibbie was in 
sad perplexity. Heaven had opened before his gaze ; its 
colors filled his eyes ; its sounds filled his ears and heart and 
brain ; but the portress was busy crying and would not open 
the door. Neither could he get at her to comfort her, for, 
her eyes being wanted to cry with, his poor signs were of no 
use. Dumbness is a drawback to the gift of consolation. 

It was a calm night early in March, clear overhead, and the 
heaven full of stars. The first faint think-odor of spring was 
in the air. A crescent moon hung half-way between the 
zenith and the horizon, clear as silver in firelight, and peace- 
ful m the consciousness that not much was required of her 
yet. Both bareheaded, the one stood under the lamp, the 
other had fallen in a heap at its foot ; the one; was- in the 
seventh paradise, if she would have but opened her eyes, 
Gibbie held one of her hands and stroked it. Then he pulled 


SIR GIBBIE. 


386 

off his coat and laid it softly upon her. She grew a little 
quieter. 

‘'Take me home, Gibbie,” she said, in a gentle voice. All 
was over ; there was no use in crying or even in thinking any 
more. 

Gibbie put his arms round her, and helped her to her feet. 
She looked at him, and saw a face glorious with bliss. Never, 
not even on Glashgar, in the skin-coat of the beast-boy, had 
she seen him so like an angel. And in his eyes was that 
which triumphed, not over dumbness, but over speech. It 
brought the rose-fire rushing into her wan cheeks ; she hid 
her face on his bosom ; and, under the dingy red flame of 
the lamp in the stony street, they held each other, as blessed 
as if they had been under an orange tree haunted with fire- 
flies. For they knew each the heart of the other, and God is 
infinite. 

How long they stood thus, neither of them knew. The 
lady would not have spoken if she could, and the youth 
could not if he' would. But the lady shivered, and because 
she shivered, she would have the youth take his coat. He 
mocked at cold ; made her put her arms in the sleeves, and 
buttoned it round her : both laughed to see how wide it was. 
Then he took her by the hand, and led her away, obedient as 
when first he found her and her heart upon Glashgar. Like 
two children, holding each other fast, they hurried along, in 
dread of pursuit. He brought her to Daur-street and gave 
her into Mrs. Sclater’s arms. Ginevra told her everything, 
except that her father had struck her, and Gibbie begged her 
to keep his wife for him till they could be married. Mrs. 
Sclater behaved like a mother to them, sent Gibbie away, 
and Ginevra to a hot bath and to bed. 


CHAPTER LIX. 

CATASTROPHE 

Gibbie went home as if Pearl-street had been the stairs of 
Glashgar, and the Auld Hoose a mansion in the heavens. He 
seemed to float along the way as one floats in a happy dream, 
where motion is born at once of the will, without the inter- 
mediating mechanics of nerve, muscle, and fulcrum. Love 
Had been gathering and ever storing itself in his heart so many 
years for this brown dove 1 now at last the rock was smitten. 


CATASTROPHE. 


3^7 

and its treasure rushed forth to her service. In nothing was 
it changed as it issued, save as the dark, silent, motionless 
water oi the cavern changes into the sparkling, ^singing, 
dancing, rivulet. Gibbie's was love simple, unselfish, unde- 
manding — not merely asking for no return, but asking for no 
recognition, requiring not even that its existence should be 
known. He was a rare one, who did not make the common 
miserable blunder of taking the shadow cast by love — the 
desire, namely to be loved — for love itself ; his love was a 
vertical sun, and his own shadow was under his feet. Silly 
youths and maidens count themselves martyrs of love, when 
they are but the pining witnesses to a delicious and entranc- 
ing selfishness. But do not mistake me through confounding, 
on the other hand, the desire to be loved — which is neither 
wrong nor noble, any more than hunger is either wrong 
or noble — and the delight in being loved, to be devoid 
of which a man must be lost in an immeasurably deeper, in 
an evil ruinous, yea, a fiendish selfishness. Not to care 
for love is the still worse reaction from the self- 
foiled and outworn greed of love. Gibbie's love was 
a diamond among gem-loves. There are men whose love 
to a friend is less selfish than their love to the dearest 
woman ; but Gibbie’s was not a love to be less divine towards 
a woman than towards a man. One man’s love is as different 
from another’s as the one is himself different from the other. 
The love that dwells in one man is an angel, the love in 
another is a bird, that in another a hog. Some would count 
worthless the love of a man who loved everybody. There 
would be no distinction in being loved by such a man ! — and 
distinction, as a guarantee of their own great worth, is what 
such seek. There are women who desire to be the sole 
object of a man’s affection, and are all their lives devoured 
by unlawful jealousies. A love that had never gone forth 
upon human being but themselves, would be to them the 
treasure to sell all that they might buy. And the man who 
brought such a love might in truth be all-absorbed therein 
himself : the poorest of creatures may well be absorbed in 
the poorest of loves. A heart has to be taught to love, and 
its first lesson, however well learnt, no more makes it perfect 
in love, than the ABC makes a savant. The man who loves 
most will love best. The man who thoroughly loves God 
and his neighbor is the only man who will love a woman 
ideally — vrho can love her with the love God thought of 
between them when he made man male and female. The 
man, I repeat, who loves God with his very life, and his 


SIR GIBBIE. 


388 

neighbor as Christ loves him, is the man who alone is capable 
of grand, perfect, glorious love to any woman. Because 
Gibbie’s love was towards everything human, he was able to 
love Ginevra as Donal, poet and prophet, was not yet grown 
able to love her. To that of the most passionate of unbeliev- 
ing lovers, Gibbie’s love was as the fire of a sun to that of a 
forest. The fulness of a world of love-ways and love-thoughts 
was Gibbie's. In sweet affairs of loving-kindness, he was in 
his own kingdom, and sat upon its throne. And it was this 
essential love, acknowledging and embracing, as a necessity 
of its being, everything that could be loved, which now con- 
centrated its rays on the individual's individual. His love to 
Ginevra stood like a growing thicket of aromatic shrubs, until 
her confession set the fire of heaven to it, and the flame that 
consumes not, but gives life, arose and shot homeward. He 
had never imagined, never hoped, never desired she should 
love him like that. She had refused his friend, the strong, 
the noble, the beatiful, Donal the poet, and it never could 
but from her own lips have found way to his belief that she 
had turned her regard upon wee Sir Gibbie, a nobody, who 
to himself was a mere burning heart running about in tattered 
garments. His devotion to her had forestalled every pain 
with its antidote of perfect love, had negatived every lack, 
had precluded every desire, had shut all avenues of entrance 
against self. Even if “ a little thought unsound” should 
have chanced upon an entrance, it would have found no soil 
to root and grow in : the soil for the harvest of pain is that 
brought down from the peaks of pride by the torrents of 
desire. Immeasurably the greater therefore was his delight, 
when the warmth and odor of the love that had been from 
time to him immemorial passing out from him in virtue of 
consolation and healing, came back upon him in the softest 
and sweetest of flower-waking spring-winds. Then indeed 
was his heart a bliss worth God's making. The sum of happi- 
ness in the city, if gathered that night into one wave, could 
not have reached half-way to the crest of the mighty billow 
tossing itself heavenward as it rushed along the ocean of 
Gibbie's spirit. 

He entered the close of the Auld Hoose. But the excess 
of his joy had not yet turned to light, was not yet passing 
from him in physical flame : whence then the glow that 
illumined the court.? He looked up. The windows of 
Mistress Croale's bedroom were glaring with light ! He 
opened the door hurriedly and darted up. On the stair he 
was met by the smell of burning, which grew stronger as he 


CATASTROPHE. 


389 

ascended. He opened Mistress Croale’s door. The chintz 
curtains of her bed were flaming to the ceiling. He darted 
to it. Mistress Croale was not in it. He jumped upon it, 
and tore down the curtains and tester, trampling them under 
his feet upon the blankets. He had almost finished, and, at 
the bottom of the bed, was reaching up and pulling at the 
last of the flaming rags, when a groan came to his ears. He 
looked down : there, at the foot of the bed, on her back 
upon the floor, lay Mistress Croale in her satin gown, with 
red swollen face, wide-open mouth, and half-open eyes, dead 
drunk, a heap of ruin. A bit of glowing tinder fell on her 
forehead. She opened her eyes, looked up, uttered a terrified 
cry, closed them,, and was again motionless, except for her 
breathing. On one side of her lay a bottle, on the other a 
chamber-candlestick upset, with the candle guttered into a 
mass. 

With the help of the water-jugs, and the bath which stood 
ready in his room, he succeeded at last in putting out the fire, 
and then turned his attention to Mistress Croale. Her breath- 
ing had grown so stertorous that he was alarmed, and getting 
more water, bathed her head, and laid a wet handkerchief on 
it, after which he sat down and watched her. It would have 
made a strange picture : the middle of the night, the fire- 
blasted bed, the painful, ugly carcase on the floor, and the 
sad yet — I had almost said radiant youth, watching near. 
The slow night passed. 

The gray of the morning came, chill and cheerless. Mis- 
tress Croale stirred, moved, crept up rather than rose to a sit- 
ting position, and stretched herself yawning. Gibbie had 
risen and stood over her. She caught sight of him ; absolute 
terror distorted her sodden face ; she stared at him, then 
stared about her, like one who had suddenly waked in hell. 
He took her by the arm. She obeyed, rose, and stood, fear 
conquering the remnants of drunkenness, with whisky- 
scorched eyes following his every movement, as he got her 
cloak and bonnet. He put them on her. She submitted 
like a child caught in wickedness, and cowed by the capture. 
He led her from the house, out into the dark morning, made 
her take his arm, and away they walked together, down to the 
riverside. She gave a reel now and then, and sometimes her 
knees would double under her ; but Gibbie was no novice at 
the task, and brought her safe to the door of her lodging — of 
which, in view of such a possibility, he had been paying the 
rent all the time. He opened the door with her pass-key, led 
her up the stair, unlocked the door of her garret, placed her 


390 


SIR GIBBIE. 


in a chair, and left her, closing the doors gently behind him. 
Instinctively she sought her bed, fell upon it, and slept again. 

When she woke, her dim mind was haunted by a terrible 
vision of resurrection and damnation, of which the only point 
she could plainly recall, was an angel, as like Sir Gibbie as 
he could look, hanging in the air above her, and sending out 
flames on all sides of him, which burned her up, inside and 
out, shrivelling soul and body together. As she lay thinking 
over it, with her eyes closed, suddenly she remembered, with 
a pang of dismay, that she had got drunk and broken her vow 
— that was the origin of the bad dream, and the dreadful 
headache, and the burning at her heart ! She must have water ! 
Painfully lifting herself upon one elbow, she opened her eyes. 
Then what a bewilderment and what a discovery, slow unfold- 
ing itself, were hers ! Like her first parents she had fallen ; 
her paradise was gone ; she lay outside among the thorns and 
thistles before the gate. From being the virtual mistress of a 
great house, she was back in her dreary lonely garret ! Re- 
exiled in shame from her briefly regained respectability, from 
friendship and honorable life and the holding forth of help to 
the world, she lay there a sow that had been washed, and 
washed in vain ! What a sight of disgrace was her grand 
satin gown — wet and scorched, and smeared with candle ! 
and ugh ! how it smelt of smoke and burning and the dregs 
of whisky ! And her lace ! She gazed at her finery as an 
angel might on his feathers which the enemy had burned while 
he slept on his watch. 

She must have water 1 She got out of bed with difficulty, 
then for a whole hour sat on the edge of it motionless, unsure 
that she was not in hell. At last she wept — acrid tears, for 
very misery. She rose, took off ht r satin and lace, put on a 
cotton gown, and was once more a decent-looking poor body 
— except as to her glowing face and burning eyes, which to 
bathe she had nothing but tears. Again she sat down, and for 
a space did nothing, only suffered in ignominy. At last life 
began to revive a little. She rose and moved about the room, 
staring at the things in it as a ghost might stare at the grave- 
clothes on its abandoned body. There on the table lay her 
keys ; and what was under them ? A letter addressed to her. 
She opened it, and found five pound-notes, with these words : 

promise to pay to Mrs. Croale five pounds monthly, for 
nine months to come. Gilbert Galbraith.” She wept again. 
He would never speak to her more ! She had lost him at 
last — her only friend ! — her sole link to God and goodness 
and the kingdom of heaven — lost him for ever ! 


CATASTROPHE. 


391 


The day went on, cold and foggy without, colder and drearier 
within. Sick and faint and disgusted, the poor heart had 
no atmosphere to beat in save an infinite sense of failure and 
lost opportunity. She had fuel enough in the room to make 
a little fire, and at length had summoned resolve sufficient for 
the fetching of water from the street-pump. She went to the 
cupboard to get a jug : she could not carry a pailful. There 
in the corner stood her demon-friend ! her own old familiar, 
the black bottle ! as if he had been patiently waiting for her 
all the long dreary time she had been away ! With a flash of 
fierce joy she remembered she had left it half-full. She caught 
it up, and held it between her and the fading light of the misty 
window : it was half-full still .? One glass — a hair of the dog 
— would set her free from faintness and sickness, disgust and 
misery ! There was no one to find fault with her now ! She 
could do as she liked — there was no one to care ! — nothing 
to take fire ! She set the bottle on the table, because her hand 
shook, and went again to the cupboard to get a glass. On 
the way — borne upward on some heavenly current from the 
deeps of her soul, the face of Gibbie, sorrowful because lov- 
ing, like the face of the Son of Man, met her. She turned, 
seized the bottle, and would have dashed it on the hearth- 
stone, but that a sudden resolve arrested her lifted arm : 
Gibbie should see ! She would be strong ! That bottle 
should stand on that shelf until the hour when she could show 
it him and say, “See the proof of my victory!” She drove 
the cork fiercely in. When its top was level with the neck, 
she set the bottle back in its place, and from that hour it 
stood there, a temptation, a ceaseless warning, the monument 
of a broken but reparable vow, a pledge of hope. It may 
not have been a prudent measure. To a weak nature it would 
have involved certain ruin. But there are natures that do 
better under difficulty ; there are many such. And with that 
fiend-like shape in her cupboard the one ambition of Mistress 
Croale’s life was henceforth inextricably bound up : she would 
turn that bottle into a witness for her against the judgement 
she had deserved. Close by the cupboard door, like a kite or 
an owl nailed up against a barn, she hung her soiled and dis- 
honored satin gown ; and the dusk having now gathered, took 
the jug, and fetched herself water. Then, having set her kettle 
on the fire, she went out with her basket, and bought bread, 
and butter. After a good cup of tea and some nice toast, she 
went to bed again, much easier both in mind and body, and 
slept. 

In the morning she went to the market, opened her shop. 


392 


SIR GIBBIE. 


and waited for customers. Pleasure and surprise at her 
reappearance brought the old ones quickly back. She was 
friendly and helpful to them as before ; but the slightest 
approach to inquiry as to where she had been or what she had 
been doing, she met with simple obstinate silence. Gibbie’s 
bounty and her faithful abstinence enabled her to add to her 
stock and extend her trade. By and by she had the com- 
mand of a little money ; and when in the late autumn there 
came a time of scarcity and disease, she went among 
the poor like a disciple of Sir Gibbie. Some said that, from 
her knowledge of their ways, from her judgment, and by her 
personal ministration of what, for her means, she gave more 
bountifully than any, she did more to hearten their endurance, 
than all the ladies together who administered money sub- 
scribed. It came to Sir Gibbie’s ears, and rejoiced his heart : 
his old friend was on the King’s highway still 1 In the mean 
time she saw nothing of him. Not once did he pass her shop, 
where often her mental, and not unfrequently her bodily, 
attitude was that of a watching lover. The second day, 
indeed, she saw him at a little distance, and sorely her heart 
smote her, for one of his hands was in a sling ; but he 
crossed to the other side, plainly to avoid her. She was none 
the less sure, however, that when she asked him he would 
forgive her ; and ask him she would, as soon as she had 
satisfactory proof of repentance to show him. 


CHAPTER LX. 

ARRANGEMENT AND PREPARATION. 

The next morning, the first thing after breakfast, Mr. 
Sclater, having reflected that Ginevra was under age and they 
must be careful, resumed for the nonce, with considerable 
satisfaction, his office of guardian, and holding no previous 
consultation with Gibbie, walked to the cottage, and sought 
an interview with Mr. Galbraith, which the latter accorded 
with a formality suitable to his idea of his own inborn 
grandeur. But his assumption had no effect on nut-headed 
Mr. Sclater, who, in this matter at all events, was at peace 
with his conscience. 

“I have to inform you, Mr. Galbraith,” he began, “that 
Miss Galbraith ” 


ARRANGEMENT AND PREPARATION. 


393 


"‘Oh ! " said the laird, “ I beg your pardon ; I was not 
aware it was my daughter you wished to see.” 

He rose and rang the bell. Mr. Sclater, annoyed at his 
manner, held his peace. 

“Tell your mistress,” said the laird, “that the Rev. Mr. 
Sclater wishes to see her.” 

The girl returned with a scared face, and the news that her 
mistress was not in her room. The laird's loose mouth 
dropped looser. 

‘ ‘ Miss Galbraith did us the honor to sleep at our house 
last night,” said Mr. Sclater deliberately. 

“The devil ! ” cried the laird, relieved. “ Why ! — What ! 

— Are you aware of what you are saying, sir ? ” 

“ Perfectly ; and of what I saw too. A blow looks bad on 
a lady’s face.” 

‘ ‘ Good heavens ! the little hussey dared to say I struck 
her ? ” 

“ She did not say so ; but no one could fail to see some one 
had. If you do not know who did it, I do.” 

“Send her home instantly, or I will come and fetch her,” 
cried the laird. 

“Come and dine with us if you want to see her. For the 
present she remains where she is. You want her to marry 
Fergus Duff; she prefers my ward, Gilbert Galbraith, and I 
shall do my best for them.” 

“She is under age,” said the laird. 

“That fault will rectify itself as fast in my house as in 
yours,” returned the minister. “If you invite the publicity 
of a legal action, I will employ counsel, and wait the result.” 

Mr. Sclater was not at all anxious to hasten the marriage ; 
he would much rather, in fact, have it put off, at least until 
Gibbie should have taken his degree. The laird started up 
in a rage, but the rooni was so small that he sat down again. 
The minister leaned back in his chair. He was too much 
displeased with the laird’s behavior to lighten the matter for 
him by setting forth the advantages of having Sir Gibbie for a 
son-in-law. 

“Mr. Sclater, ” said the laird at length, “I am shocked, 
unspeakably shocked, at my daughter’s conduct. To leave 
the shelter of her father’s roof, in the middle of the night, 
and ” 

“About seven o’olock in the evening,” interjected Mr. 
Sclater. 

‘ ‘ — and take refuge with strangers ! ” continued the laird. 

“ By no means strangers, Mr. Galbraith!” said the minis- 


394 


SIR GIBBIE. 


ter. You drive your daughter from your house, and are 
then shocked to find she has taken refuge with friends ! ” 

“She is an unnatural child. She knows well enough what 
I think of her, and what reason she has given me so to 
think.'' 

“When a man happens to be alone in any opinion," re- 
marked the minister, “even if the opinion should be of his 
own daughter, the probabilities are he is wrong. Every one 
but yourself has the deepest regard for Miss Galbraith." 

“She has always cultivated strangely objectional friend- 
ships," said the laird. 

“For my own part," said the minister, as if heedless of the 
laird’s last remark, “ although I believe she has no dowry, 
and there are reasons besides why the connection should not 
be desirable, I do not know a lady I should prefer for a wife 
to my ward.” 

The minister’s plain speaking was not without eifect upon 
the laird. It made him uncomfortable. It is only when the 
conscience is wide awake and regnant that it can be appealed 
to without giving a cry for response. Again he sat silent a 
while. Then gathering all the pomp and stiffness at his 
command, 

“Oblige me by informing my daughter,” he said, “that I 
request her, for the sake of avoiding scandal, to return to her 
father's house until she is of age." 

“And in the mean time you undertake 

“ I undertake nothing," shouted the laird, in his feeble, 
woolly, yet harsh voice. 

“Then I refuse to carry your message. I will be no 
bearer of that from which, as soon as delivered, I should 
dissuade." 

“Allow me to ask, are you a minister of the gospel, and 
stir up a child against her own father ? " 

“I am not here to bandy words with you, Mr. Galbraith. 
It is nothing to me what you think of me. If you will en- 
gage not to urge your choice upon Miss Galbraith, I think it 
probable she will at once return to you. If not ” 

“ I will not force her inclinations, said the laird. “She 
knows my wish, and she ought to know the duty of a 
daughter. " 

“ I will tell her what you say,” answered the minister, and 
took his departure. 

When Gibbie heard, he was not at all satisfied with Mr. 
Sclater’s interference to such result. He wished to marry 
Ginevra at once, in order to take her from under the tyranny 


ARRANGEMENT AND PREPARATION. 395 

of her father. But he was readily convinced it wouid be bet- 
ter, now things were understood, that she should go back to 
him, and try once more to gain him. The same day she did 
9^0 back, and Gibbie took up his quarters at the minister’s. 

Ginevra soon found that her father had not yielded the 
idea of having his own way with her, but her spirits and 
courage were now so good, that she was able not only to 
endure with less suffering, but to carry herself quite differ- 
ently. Much less afraid of him, she was the more watchful 
to minister to his wants, dared a loving liberty now and then 
in spite of his coldness, took his objurgations with something 
of the gaiety of one who did not or would not believe he 
meant them, and when he abused Gibbie, did not answer a 
word, knowing events alone could set him right in his idea 
of him. Rejoiced that he had not laid hold of the fact that 
Glashruach was Gibbie’s, she never mentioned the place to 
him ; for she shrunk with sharpest recoil from the humilia- 
tion of seeing him, upon conviction, turn from Fergus to 
Gibbie : the kindest thing they could do for him would be to 
marry against his will, and save him from open tergiversa- 
tion : for no one could then blame him, he would be thor- 
oughly pleased, and not having the opportunity of self- 
degradation, would be saved the cause for self-contempt. 

For some time Fergus kept on hoping. The laird, blinded 
by his own wishes, and expecting Gibbie would soon do 
something to bring public disgrace upon himself, did not tell 
him of his daughter’s determination and self-engagement, 
while, for her part, Ginevra believed she fulfilled her duty 
towards him in the endeavor to convince him by her conduct 
that nothing could ever induce her to marry him. So the 
remainder of the session passed — the laird urging his objec- 
tions against Gibbie, and growing extravagant in his praises 
of Fergus, while Ginevra kept taking fresh courage, and be- 
ing of good cheer. Gibbie went to the cottage once or twice, 
but the laird made it so uncomfortable for them, and Fergus 
was so rude, that they agreed it would be better to content 
themselves with meeting when they had the chance. 

At the end of the month Gibbie went home as usual, telling 
Ginevra he must be present to superintend what was going 
on at Glashruach to get the house ready for her, but saying 
nothing of what he was building there. By the beginning of 
the winter, they had got the buttress-wall finished and the 
coping oii it, also the shell of the new house roofed in, so 
that the carpenters had been’ at work all through the frost and 
snow, and things had made great progress without any hurry ; 


SIR GIBBIE. 


396 

and now, since the first day the weather had permitted, the 
masons were at work again. The bridge was built, the wall 
of the old house broken through, the turret carried aloft. Tha 
channel of the little burn they had found completely blocked 
by a great stone at the farther edge of the landslip ; up to 
this stone they opened the channel, protecting it by masonry 
against further slip, and by Gibbie’s directions left it so — after 
boring the stone, which still turned every drop of the water 
aside into the Glashburn, for a good charge of gunpowder. 
All the hollow where the latter burn had carried away pine- 
w'ood and shubbery, gravel drive and lawn, had been planted, 
mostly with fir trees ; and a weir of strong masonry, a little 
way below the house, kept the water back, so that it rose and 
spread, and formed a still pool just under the house, reflect- 
ing it far beneath. If Ginevra pleased, Gibbie meant to raise 
the weir, and have quite a little lake in the hollow. A new 
approach had been contrived, and was nearly finished before 
Gibbie returned to college. 


CHAPTER LXI. 

THE WEDDING. 

In the mean time Fergus, dull as he was to doubt his own 
importance and success — for did not the public acknowledge 
both ? — yet by degrees lost heart and hope so far as con- 
cerned Ginevra, and at length told the laird that, much as he 
valued his society, and was indebted for his kindness, he 
must deny himself the pleasure of visiting any more at the 
cottage — so plainly was his presence unacceptable to Miss 
Galbraith. The laird blustered against his daughter, and 
expostulated with the preacher, not forgetting to hint at the 
ingratitude of forsaking him, after all he had done and borne 
in the furthering of his interests : Jenny must at length come 
to see what reason and good sense required of her ! But 
Fergus had at last learned his lesson, and was no longer to 
be blinded. Besides, there had lately c6me to his church a 
certain shopkeeper, retired rich, with one daughter; and as 
his hope of the dignity of being married to Ginevra faded, 
he had come to feel the enticement of Miss Lapraik’s money 
and good looks — which gained in forc6 considerably when 
he began to understand the serious off-sets there were to the 
honor of being son-in-law, to Mr. Galbraith : a nobody as was 


THE WEDDING. 


397 


old Lapraik in himself and his position, he was at least looked 
upon with respect, argued Fergus ; and indeed the man was 
as honest as it is possible for any worshipper of Mammon to 
be. Fergus therefore received the laird’s expostulations and 
encouragements with composure, but when at length, in his 
growing acidity, Mr. Galbraith reflected on his birth, and his 
own condescension in showing him friendship, Fergus left 
the house, never to go near it again. Within three months, 
for a second protracted courtship was not to be thought of, 
he married Miss Lapraik, and lived respectable ever after — 
took to writing hymns, became popular afresh through his 
poetry, and exercised a double influence for the humilation 
of Christianity. But what matter, while he counted himself 
fortunate, and thought himself happy 1 his fame spread ; he 
had good health ; his wife worshipped him ; and if he had 
had a valet, I have no doubt he would have been a hero to 
him, thus climbing the topmost untrodden peak of the world’s 
grea-tness. 

When the next evening came, and Fergus did not appear, 
the laird fidgeted, then stormed, then sank into a moody 
silence. When the second night came, and Fergus did not 
come, the sequence was the same, with exasperated symptoms. 
Night after night passed thus, and Ginevra began to fear for 
her father’s reason. She challenged him to play backgammon 
with her, but he scorned the proposal. She begged him to 
teach her chess, but he scouted the notion of her having wit 
enough to learn. She offered to read to him, entreated him 
to let her do something with him, but he repelled her every 
advance with contempt and surliness, which now and then 
broke into rage and vituperation. 

As soon as Gibbie returned, Ginevra let him know how 
badly things were going with her father. They met, con- 
sulted, agreed that the best thing was to be married at once, 
made their preparations and confident that, if asked, he would 
refuse his permission, proceeded, for his sake, as if they had 
had it. 

One morning, as he sat at breakfast, Mr. Galbraith received 
from Mr. Torrie, whom he knew as the agent in the purchase 
of Glashruach, and whom he supposed to have bought it for 
Major Culsalmon, a letter, more than respectful, stating that 
matters had come to light regarding the property which ren- 
dered his preseiice on the spot indispensable for their solution, 
especially as there might be papers of consequence in view of 
the points in question, in some drawer or cabinet of those he 
had left locked behind him. The .present owner, therefore, 


SIR GIBBIE. '** 


398 

through Mr. Torrie, begged most respectfully that Mr. Gal- 
braith would sacrifice two days of his valuable time and visit 
Glashruach. The result, he. did not doubt, would be to the 
advantage of both parties. If Mr. Galbraith would kindly 
signify to Mr. Torrie his assent, a carriage and four, with 
postilions, that he might make the journey in all possible 
comfort, should be at his house the next morning, at ten 
o’clock, if that hour would be convenient. 

For weeks the laird had been an unmitigated bore to him- 
self, and the invitation laid hold upon him by the most pro- 
jecting handle of his being, namely, his self-importance. He 
wrote at once to signify his gracious assent ; and in the even- 
ing told his daughter he was going to Glashruach on busi- 
ness, and had arranged for Miss Kimble to come and stay 
with her till his return. 

At nine o’clock the schoolmistress came to breakfast, and at 
ten a travelling-carriage with four horses drew up at the door, 
looking nearly as big as the cottage. With monstrous stateli- 
ness, and a fur-coat on his arm, the laird descended to his 
garden gate, and got into the carriage, which instantly dashed 
away for the western road, restoring Mr. Galbraith to the full 
consciousness of his inherent grandeur : if he was not exactly 
laird of Glashruach again, he was something quite as im- 
portant. His carriage was just out of the street, when a second, 
also with four horses, drew up, to the astonishment of Miss 
Kimble, at the garden gate. Out of it stepped Mr. and Mrs. 
Sclater ! then a young gentleman, whom she thought very 
graceful until she discovered it was that low-lived Sir Gilbert ! 
and Mr. Torrie the lawyer ! They came trooping into the 
little drawing-room, shook hands with them both, and sat 
down. Sir Gilbert beside Ginevra — but nobody spoke. What 
could it mean ! A morning call ? It was too early. And 
four horses to a morning call ! A pastoral visitation ? Four 
horses and a lawyer to a pastoral visitation I A business call ? 
There was Mrs. Sclater ! and that Sir Gilbert ! It must after 
all be a pastoral -visitation, for there was the minister com- 
mencing a religious service ! — during which however it sud- 
denly revealed itself to the horrified spinster that she was part 
and parcel of a clandestine wedding ! An anxious father had 
placed her in charge of his daughter, and this was how she 
she was fulfilling her trust ! There was Ginevra being married 
in a brown dress ! and to that horrid lad, who called himself 
a baronet and hobnobbed with a low market woman! But 
alas I just as she was recovering her presence of mind, Mr. 
Sclater pronounced them husband and wife 1 She gaVe a 


THE WEDDING. 


399 


shriek, and cried out, I forbid the banns," at which the 
company, bride and bridegoom included, broke into “a 
loud smile." The ceremony over, Ginevra glided from the 
room, and returned almost immediately in her little brown 
bonnet. Sir Gilbert caught up his hat, and Ginevra held out 
her hand to Miss Kimble. Then at length the abashed and 
aggrieved lady found words of her own. 

“ Ginevra ! " she cried, “you are never going to leave me 
alone in the house ! — after inviting me to stay with you till 
your father returned ! ” 

But the minister answered her. 

“It was her father who invited you, I believe, not Lady 
Galbraith," he said; “and you understood perfectly that 
the invitation was not meant to give her pleasure. You would 
doubtless have her postpone her wedding-journey on your 
account, but my lady is under no obligation to think of you." 
He had heard of her tattle against Sir Gilbert, and thus rudely 
showed his resentment. 

IMiss Kimble burst into tears. Ginevra kissed her, and 
said : 

“Never mind, dear Miss Kimble. You could not help it. 
The whole thing was arranged. We are going after my 
father, and we have the best of horses." 

Mr. Torrie laughed outright. 

“A new kind of runaway marriage ! " he cried. “ The 
happy couple pursuing the obstinate parent with four horses ! 
Ha ! ha I ha ! " 

“But after the ceremony ! " said Mr. Sclater. 

Here the servant ran down the steps with a carpet-bag, and 
opened the gate for her mistress. Lady Galbraith got into the 
carriage ; Sir Gilbert followed ; there was kissing and tears at 
the door of it ; Mrs. Sclater drew back ; the postilions 
spurred their horses ; off went the second carriage faster than 
the first ; and the minister’s party walked quietly away, leav- 
ing Miss Kimble to declaim to the maid of all work, who 
cried so that she did not hear a word she said. The school- 
mistress put on her bonnet, and full of indignation carried her 
news of the treatment to which she had been subjected to the 
Rev. Fergus Duff, who remarked to himself that it was sad to 
see youth and beauty turn away from genius and influence to 
wed money and idiocy, gave a sigh, and went to see Miss 
Lapraik. 

Between the second stage and the third, Gibbieand Ginevra 
came in sight of their father’s carriage. Having arranged 
with the postilions that the two carriages should not change 


400 


SIR GIBBIE. 


horses at the same places, they easily, passed unseen by him, 
while thinking of nothing so little as their proximity, he sat 
in state before the door of a village inn. 

Just as Mr. Galbraith was beginning to hope the major had 
contrived a new approach to the place, the carriage took an 
unexpected turn, and he found presently they were climbing, 
by a zig-zag road, the height over the Lorrie burn ; but, the 
place w'as no longer his, and to avoid a sense of humiliation, 
he avoided taking any interest in the change. 

A young woman — it was Donal’s eldest sister, but he knew 
nothing of her — opened the door to him, and showed him up 
the stair to his old study. There a great fire was burning ; 
but, beyond that, everything, even to the trifles on his writing 
table, was just as when last he left the house. His chair 
stood in its usual position by the fire, and wine and biscuits 
were on a little table near. 

“Very considerate !” he said to himself. “ I trust the 
major does not mean to keep me waiting, though. Deuced 
hard to have to leave a place like this ! 

Weary with his journey he fell into a doze, dreamed of his 
dead wife, woke suddenly, and heard the door of the room 
open. There was Major Culsalmon entering with outstretched 
hand ! and there was a lady — his wife doubtless ! But how 
young the major was ! he had imagined him a man in middle 
age at least ! — Bless his soul ! was he never to get rid of this 
impostor fellow ! it was not the major ! it was the rascal 
calling himself Sir Gilbert Galbraith ! — the half-witted wretch 
his fool of a daughter insisted on marrying ! Here he was, 
ubiquitous as Satan ! And — bless his soul again ! there was 
the minx, Jenny ! looking as if the place was her own ! The 
silly tears in her eyes too ! It was all too absurd ! He had 
just been dreaming of his dead wife, and clearly that was it 1 
he was not awake yet ! 

He tried hard to wake, but the dream mastered him. 

“Jenny ! ” he said, as the two stood for a moment regard- 
ing him, a little doubtfully, but with smiles of welcome, 
“what is the meaning of this? I did not know Major 
Culsalmon had invited you! And what is this person doing 
here? 

“Papa,” replied Ginevra, with a curious smile, half merry, 
half tearful, “this person is my husband, Sir Gilbert Gal- 
braith of Glashruach ; and you are at home in your own 
study again.” 

“Will you never have done masquerading, Jenny?” he 


THE BURN. 


401 


returned. ^‘Inform Major Culsalmon that I request to see 
him immediately." 

He turned towards the fire, and took up a newspaper. 
They thought it better to leave him. As he sat, by degrees 
the truth grew plain to him. But not one other word on the 
matter did the man utter to the day of his death. When 
dinner was announced, he walked straight from the dining- 
room door to his former place at the foot of the table. But 
Robina Grant was equal to the occasion. She caught up the 
dish before him, and set it at the side. There Gibbie seated 
himself ; and, after a moment’s hesitation, Ginevra placed 
herself opposite her husband. 

The next day Gibbie provided him with something to do. 
He had the chest of papers found in the Auld Hoose o’ Gal- 
braith carried into his study, and the lawyer found both em- 
ployment and interest for weeks in deciphering and arranging 
them. Amongst many others concerning the property, its 
tenures, and boundaries, appeared some papers which, asso- 
ciated and compared, threw considerable doubt on the way 
in which portions of it had changed hands, and passsd from 
those of Gibbie’s ancestors into those of Ginevra’s — who were 
lawyers as well as Galbraiths ; and the laird was keen of scent 
as any nose-hound after dishonesty in other people. In the 
course of a fortnight he found himself so much at home in 
his old quarters, and so much interested in those papers and 
his books, that when Sir Gilbert informed him Ginevra and 
he were going back to the city, he pronounced it decidedly 
the better plan, seeing he was there himself to look after 
affairs. 

For the rest of the winter, therefore, Mr. Galbraith played 
the grand seigneur as before among the tenants of Glash- 
ruach. 


CHAPTER LXII. 

THE BURN. 

The moment they were settled in the Auld Hoose, Gibbie 
resumed the habits of the former winter, which Mistress 
Croale’s failure had interrupted. . And .what a change it was 
to Ginevra — from imprisonment to ministration I She found 
difficulties at first, as may readily be believed; But presently 
came help. As soon as Mistress Croale heard of their return, 


402 


SIR GIBBIE. 


she went immediately to Lady Galbraith, one morning while 
Sir Gibbie was at college, literally knelt at her feet, and with 
tears told her the whole tale, beseeching her intercession with 
Sir Gibbie. 

“ I want naething,’' she insisted, ‘'but his fawvour, an’ the 
licht o’ his bonnie coontenance.” 

The end of course was that she was gladly received again into 
the house, where once more she attended to all the principal 
at least of her former duties. Before she died, there was a 
great change and growth in her : she was none of those before 
whom pearls must not be cast. 

Every winter, for many years. Sir Gilbert and Lady Gal- 
braith occupied the Auld Hoose ; which by degrees came at 
length to be known as the refuge of all that were in honest 
distress, the salvation of all in themselves such as could be 
helped, and a covert for the night to all the houseless, of 
whatever sort, except those drunk at the time. Caution had 
to be exercised, and judgment used ; the caution was tender 
and the judgment stern. The next year they built a house in 
a sheltered spot on Glashgar, and thither from the city they 
brought many invalids, to spend the summer months under 
the care of Janet and her daughter Robina, whereby not a 
few were restored sufficiently to earn their bread for a time 
thereafter. 

The very day the session was over, they returned to Glash- 
ruach, where they were received by the laird, as he was still 
called, as if they had been guests. They found Joseph, the 
old butler, reinstated, and Angus again acting as gamekeeper. 
Ginevra welcomed Joseph, but took the first opportunity of 
telling Angus that for her father’s sake Sir Gilbert allowed 
him to remain, but on the first act of violence he should at 
once be dismissed, and probably prosecuted as well. Donal’s 
eldest brother was made bailiff. Before long Gibbie got the 
other two also about him, and as soon as, with justice, he 
was able, settled them together upon one of his farms. Every 
Saturday, so long as Janet lived, they met, as in the old times, 
at the cottage — only with Ginevra in the place of the absent 
Donal. More to her own satisfaction, after all, than Robert’s, 
Janet went home first, — “ to be at han’,” she said, “to open 
the door till him whan he chaps.” Then Robert went to his 
sons below on their farm, where he was well taken care of ; 
but happily he did not remain long behind his wife. That 
first summer. Nicie returned to Glashruach to wait on Lady 
Galbraith, was more her friend than her servant, and when 
she married, was settled on the estate. 


THE BURN. 


403 

For some little time Ginevra was fully occupied in getting 
her house in order, and furnishing the new part of it. When 
that was done, Sir Gilbert gave an entertainment to his tenants. 
The laird preferred a trip to the city, “on business,” to the 
humiliation of being present as other than the greatest ; 
though perhaps he would have minded it less had he ever 
himself given a dinner to his tenants. 

Robert and Janet declined the invitation. 

“We’re ower auld for makin’ merry ’cep’ in oor ain herts,” 
said Janet. “ But bide ye, my bonny Sir Gibbie, till we’re a’ 
up yon’er, an’ syne we’ll see.” 

The place of honor was therefore given to Jean Mavor, 
who was beside herself with joy to see her broonie lord of the 
land, and be seated beside him in respect and friendship. 
But her brother said it was “clean ridic’lous;” and not to 
the last would consent to regard the new laird as other than 
half-witted, insisting that everything was done by his wife, 
and that the talk on his fingers was a mere pretence. 

When the main part of the dinner was over. Sir Gilbert and 
his lady stood at the head of the table, and, he speaking by 
signs and she interpreting, made a little speech together. In the 
course of it Sir Gibbie took occasion to apologize for having 
once disturbed the peace of the country-side by acting the 
supposed part of a broonie^ and in relating his adventures of 
the time, accompanied his wife’s text with such graphic illus- 
tration of gesture, that his audience laughed at the merry tale 
till the tears ran down their cheeks. Then with a few allu- 
sions to his strange childhood, he thanked the God who led 
him through thorny ways into the very arms of love and 
peace in the cottage of Robert and Janet Grant, whence, and 
not from the fortune he had since inherited, came all his 
peace. 

“ He desires me to tell you,” said Lady Galbraith, “that 
he was a stranger, and you folk of Daurside took him in, and 
if ever he can do a kindness to you or yours, he will. — He 
desires me also to say, that you ought not to be left ignorant 
that you have a poet of your own, born and bred among you 
— Donal Grant, the son of Robert and Janet, the friend of 
Sir Gilbert’s heart, and one of the noblest of men. And he 
begs you to allow me to read you a poem he had from him 
this very morning— probably just written. It is called The 
Laverock, I will read it as well as I can. If any of you do 
not like poetry, he says— I mean Sir Gilbert says — ^you can 
go to the kitchen and light your pipes, and he will send your 
wine there to you.” 


404 


SIR GIBBIE. 


. She ceased. Not one stirred, and she read the verses— 
%vhich, for the sake of having Donal in at the last of my book, 
I will print. Those who do not care for verse, may — meta- 
phorically, I would not be rude — go and smoke their pipes 
in the kitchen. 


THE LAVEROCK. 

THE MAN says: 


Laverock i’ the lift, 

Hae ye nae sang-thrift, 

’At ye scatter’ t sae heigh, an’ lat it a’ drift ? 

Wasterfu’ laverock ! 

Dinna ye ken 

At ye hing ower men 

Wha haena a sang or a penny to spen’ ? 

Plertless laverock ! 

But np there, you, 

I’ the bow o’ the blue, 

Haud skirlin’ on as gien a’ war new ! shrilling) 

Tooin-heidit laverock ! ^^empty-headed) 

Haith ! ye’re ower blythe ; 

I see a great scythe 

Swing whaur yer nestie lies, doon i’ the lythe, {shelter) 
Liltin’ laverock ! 

Eh, sic a soon’ ! 

Birdie, come doon — • 

Ye’re fey to sing sic a merry tune, {death-doomed) 
Gowkit laverock ! {silly) 

Come to yer nest ; 

Yer wife’s sair prest ; 

She’s clean worn oot wi’ duin’ her best. 

Rovin’ laverock ! 

Winna ye haud ? 

Ye’re surely mad ! 

Is there naebody there to gie ye a daud ? {blow) 
Menseless laverock ! 

Come doon an’ conform ; 

Pyke an honest worm, 

An’ hap yer bairns frae the muckle storm, 

Spendrife laverock ! 


THE BURN. 


405 


THE BIRD SINGS : 

My nestie it lieth 

I’ the how o’ a han’ ; {hollow) 

The swing o’ the scythe 
’111 miss ’t by a span. 

The lift it’s sae cheerie ! 

The win’ it’s sae free ! 

I hing, ower my dearie. 

An’ sing ’cause I see. 

My wifie’s wee breistie 
Grows warm wi’ my sang, 

An’ ilk crumpled-up beastie 
Kens no to think lang. 

Up here the sun sings, but 
He only shines there ! 

Ye haena nae wings, but 
Come up on a prayer. 

THE MAN sings: 

Ye wee daurin’ cratur, 

Ye rant an’ ye sing 

Like an oye o’ auld Natur’ {grandchild) 

Ta’en hame by the King I 

Ye wee feathert priestie, 

Yer bells i’ yer thro’t, 

Yer altar yer breistie, 

Yer mitre forgot—' 

Offerin’ an’ Aaron, 

Ye burn hert an* brain ; 

An’ dertin’ an’ daurin* 

Flee back to yer ain ! 

Ye wee minor prophet, 

It’s ’maist my belief 

*At I’m doon i’ Tophet, 

An’ you abune grief ! 

Ye’ve deavt me an’ daudit, {deafened) {buffeted) 
An’ ca’d me a fule ; 

I’m nearhan’ persuaudit 
To gang to your schule I 

For, birdie, I’m thinkin* 

Ye ken mair nor m^— 

Gien haena been drinlm*, . 
sing as ye sec. 


4o6 


SIR GIBBIE. 


Ye maun hae a sicht ’at 

Sees geyan far ben ; {considerably) {inwards) 
An’ a hert for the micht o’ ’t 
Wad sair for nine men ! ( serve ) 


Somebody’s been till 

Roun to ye wha {whisper) 

Said birdies war seen till 
E’en whan they fa ’ 1 

After the reading of the poem, Sir Gilbert and Lady Gal- 
braith withdrew, and went towards the new part of the house, 
where they had their rooms. On the bridge, over which 
Ginevra scarcely ever passed without stopping to look both 
up and down the dry channel in the rock, she lingered as 
usual, and gazed from its windows. Below, the waterless bed 
of the burn opened out on the great valley of the Daur ; 
above was the landslip, and beyond it the stream rushing 
down the mountain. Gibbie pointed up to it. She gazed a 
while, and gave a great sigh. He asked her — their communi- 
cation was now more like that between two spirits : even 
signs had become almost unnecessary — what she wanted or 
missed. She looked in his face and said, “ Naething but the 
sang o’ myburnie, Gibbie.” He took a small pistol from his 
pocket, and put it in her hand ; then, opening the window, 
signed to her to fire it. She had never fired a pistol, and was 
a little frightened, but would have been utterly ashamed 
to shrink from anything Gibbie would have her do. She 
held it out. Her hand trembled. He laid his upon it, and 
it grew steady. She pulled the trigger, and dropped the pistol 
with a little cry. He signed to her to listen. A moment 
passed, and then, like a hugely magnified echo came a roar 
that rolled from mountain to mountain, like a thunder drum. 
The next instant, the landslip seemed to come hurrying 
down the channel, roaring and leaping : it was the mud- 
brown waters of the burn, careering along as if mad with joy 
at having regained their ancient course. Ginevra stared with 
parted lips, delight growing to apprehension as the live thing 
momently neared the bridge. With tossing mane of foam, the 
brown course, came rushing on, and shot thundering under. 
They turned, and from the other window saw it tumbling 
headlong down the steep descent to the Lorrie. By quick 
gradations, even as they gazed, the mud melted away ; the 
water grew clearer and clearer, and in a few minutes a small 
mountain-river, of a lovely lucid brown, transparent as a 


THE BURN. 


407 


smoke-crystal, was dancing along under the bridge. It had 
ceased its roar and was sweetly singing. 

“ Let us see it from my room, Gibbie,” said Ginevra. 

They went up, and from the turret window looked down 
upon the water. They gazed until, like the live germ of the 
gathered twilight, it was scarce to be distinguished but by 
abstract motion. 

“It’s my ain burnie,^’said Ginevra, “an’ it’s ain auld 
sang ! I’ll warran’ it hasna forgotten a note o’ ’t ! Eh, Gib- 
bie, ye gie me a’ thing ! ” 

Gien I was a burnte, wadna I n>z/”sang Gibbie, and 
Ginevra heard the words, though Gibbie could utter only 
the air he had found for them so long ago. She threw 
herself into his arms, and hiding her face on his shoulder, 
clung silent to her silent husband. Over her lovely bowed 
head, he gazed into the cool spring night, sparkling with stars 
and shadowy with mountains. His eyes climbed the stairs 
of Glashgar to the lonely peak dwelling among the lights of 
God ; and if upon their way up the rocks they met no visible 
sentinels of heaven, he needed neither ascending stairs nor 
descending angels, for a better than the angels was with 
them. 


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